State wins judgment against former CandelTronics CEO

Will Astor//October 2, 2014//

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New York State has won a $400,000 judgment against the former CEO of a Rochester electronics company accused of ripping off investors, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Thursday.

Salvatore Candeloro, the onetime CEO of CandelTronics Corp., founded the firm in 1998 to market a device he developed that let users pull power from wall outlets without using an extension cord.

Schneiderman said his office launched a probe of Candeloro’s dealings after investors who had sunk $1.8 million into the company complained that, despite promises that their loans and equity investments would help bring Candeloro’s Extendit device to market, CandelTronics had returned nothing to them after 17 years.

In the probe, investigators learned Candeloro’s promises were empty, Schneiderman said. The company had been stripped of its corporate status in 2001 for non-payment of taxes and Candeloro falsely had claimed to have won Underwriters Laboratory approval for the Extendit device.

The judgment calling for Candeloro to pay $365,000 in restitution plus a $35,000 penalty came after the attorney general filed a suit charging Candeloro with fraud in March.

A consent decree issued by state Supreme Court Justice Scott Odorisi calls for Candeloro to be barred from owning, running or managing a business, and from selling securities in New York.

Odorisi also stripped Candeloro of his shares in CandelTronics and ordered them to be distributed among 20 equity investors in the electronics venture.

Because Candeloro kept poor business records, his office might not have uncovered every investor who sank money into CandelTronics. Any investors in the electronics firm who think they were overlooked should contact his office, Schneiderman said.