Man defrauds investors in ‘Magic Mike Live’ show out of more than $4 million, feds say

A man defrauded investors in a “Magic Mike Live” show out of more than $4 million and used much of the money to gamble, according to federal prosecutors.

John Santilli Jr., 48, of Rhode Island, pleaded guilty in a California court on Oct. 27 to one count each of securities fraud and wire fraud, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

Santilli’s attorneys and “Magic Mike Live” could not be reached for comment by McClatchy News.

Santilli was the manager and partial owner of a Los Angeles-based entertainment company, Aloris Entertainment LLC, which purchased shares in another company, Mike’s Mobile Detailing LLC, that runs a “Magic Mike Live” stage show, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The show is based off the film “Magic Mike,” which stars Channing Tatum and follows the life of a male stripper in Florida.

Between June 2016 and February 2020, Santilli solicited investors, many in California, to buy shares in a business called “Aloris Magic Mike LP,” which he falsely told investors owned stocks in the stage show, prosecutors said.

He told the investors that the shares they purchased would entitle them to a certain percentage of the profits of “Magic Mike Live,” which was not true, according to U.S. Attorney’s Office. He is also accused of using a “doctored legal document” to make it seem as though the Aloris Magic Mike LP company was a shareholder of the company that operates “Magic Mike Live.”

Santilli then gambled much of the money his investors gave him and withdrew more than $1 million at various casinos around the U.S., prosecutors said.

He then told investors about new opportunities to get more money and ended up selling almost double the number of shares in Mike’s Mobile Detailing than his company really owned, the release says.

In total, his victims lost around $4,258,679, the release says.

He then promised them he’d pay them back with cashier’s checks but later caused the financial institutions that issued the checks to cancel them after he claimed they’d been lost, according to his indictment

A sentencing hearing for Santilli is scheduled for April 20, according to the release. He faces a mandatory maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison. He will also be required to to pay full restitution to his victims, according to a plea agreement.

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