PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A former accountant who embezzled $10.8 million to produce Grade-B horror movies and lead a lavish lifestyle was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Denis I. Shusterman, 44, was ordered to start serving the sentence for embezzlement, fraud and tax charges on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Legrome Davis described him as "one of the most specially talented liars that I have ever met in my life."

The chief victim was Shusterman's employer, Leslie Edelman, owner of Kimber Mfg., a firearms company in Yonkers, N.Y.

Though he pleaded guilty in the midst of a trial in May to 51 counts, Shusterman told the federal judge on Wednesday, "I am an innocent man." His attorney, Ari Karpf, said he entered the pleas not because he was guilty but because he thought the evidence indicated his guilt.

The judge refused to let Shusterman withdraw the guilty pleas, saying he simply was not credible and appeared to consider the courtroom "a stage for another of his endless series of frauds."

Shusterman spent nearly $6 million to produce the three films, moved his family to a $2 million California home, and spent more of the money on a lifestyle prosecutor Robert Zauzmer said included at least three and possibly up to five mistresses.

Shusterman came under investigation after his mother's conviction in 2002 of helping to embezzle $1.3 million from a suburban Philadelphia synagogue where she worked as a bookkeeper. Betty Shusterman, now 75, is serving a four-year federal prison

Edelman has no luck. From what I remember - the store chain was run into the ground by the
employees too.

Rich

I didn't know that Eledman owned Kimber...
(shows how much I paid attention to a company that produced rifles I couldn't afford)

I really miss Edelmans Wayne NJ store and got to go into the Montgommeryville PA store exactly once before it too closed.

I still have stuff I bought in the wayne store when they were having their clearance sale...

I bought my first rifles and Shotguns from Edelman's
Now I hear Ray's Sportshop in Plainfield, NJ is being sold...

AllanD