Crime & Safety

Marlton Travel Scammers Face Prison Time, Probation

Daryl Turner and Robyn Bernstein will have to pay back $2.6 million they stole from customers.

Daryl Turner and Robyn Bernstein lived the high life—their 4,500-square-foot home at Little Mill Country Club in Evesham Township had a pool in back and a Bentley, a Ferrari and a Range Rover in the driveway.

But all of it came from ill-gotten gains from the couple’s travel companies, authorities said, and now both Turner and Bernstein have pleaded guilty to charges of theft by deception.

Turner faces a seven-year state prison sentence under the plea deal, while prosecutors will recommend a five-year probation sentence for Bernstein. Both faced the possibility of decades in prison, had they gone to trial.

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The couple will also have to repay roughly $2.6 million to the victims of their scams, which involves the forfeiture of their home and the seizure of multiple bank accounts, according to the terms of the plea.

Turner and Bernstein admitted they ran numerous companies that scammed hundreds of travel customers out of thousands of dollars by selling fake vacation packages and collecting fees on what they claimed were free, promotional airfares and cruises they never delivered.

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In all, the couple ran eight different companies in a little more than four years, authorities said, closing one down and opening another as scammed customers figured out things had gone wrong.

In what authorities termed “a flagrant case of consumer fraud,” Turner and Bernstein admitted they baited potential victims with mass-mailed postcards promising a free cruise for two or free airfare for two, then used high-pressure sales tactics, pushing vacation packages that ranged in cost from around $2,200 to $6,500—packages that promised impossible prices and unavailable properties.

From condos in Walt Disney World to 75 percent off resort stays to cruise discounts of 65 percent, Turner and Berstein's offers via Away We Go Promotions, LLC were pure fantasy, authorities said—and further, the couple knew the Georgia-based travel company they used to book vacations for their customers had no way of delivering on those promises, and frequently didn't even book the types of travel the couple was selling.

Fees they collected on the allegedly free cruises and flights—Turner and Bernstein told customers it was to cover everything from port and government fees to random, unnamed taxes and fees—totaled nearly $150,000, authorities said.

“Turner was a master of the slick sales pitch, and he used his powers of deception to steal $2.6 million from customers of his travel companies,” said acting New Jersey Attorney General John J. Hoffman. “This guilty plea serves justice by ensuring that Turner will be sentenced to a substantial prison term.”

Complaints against the couple date back to 2009, when the Division of Consumer Affairs filed a civil complaint against Turner and three of his businesses in Morris County, which was settled in 2011 for $3 million, and banned Turner from working in the travel business in the state for five years.

But Turner ignored that ban, and authorities discovered he was still involved in one of Bernstein's travel companies—Travel Deals, LLC. 

The couple also ran travel companies under Dreamworks Vacation Club, Five Points Travel Company, Vacation Clubs LLC (doing business as La Bonne Vie Travel), Bentley Travel, Blue Water Gateway, Modern Destinations Unlimited and VIP Executives, LLC, authorities said. Some of those companies were incorporated in New Jersey and had addresses in Cherry Hill, Marlton, Parsippany and Manalapan, but others were just out-of-state postal drop boxes, authorities said.

The criminal investigation against Turner and Bernstein started as a result of a referral from the Department of Consumer Affairs, and state officials said they won’t tolerate unscrupulous business owners.

“When business operators commit outright fraud and theft, as Turner did, we will aggressively investigate and prosecute them,” said Elie Honig, director of the Division of Criminal Justice.

Bernstein and Turner are both scheduled to be sentenced before Superior Court Judge Terrence R. Cook in Burlington County on Jan. 10, 2014.


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