Florida man convicted of stealing sports camp tuition funds from hundreds of families

BOSTON (AP) — A Florida man has been convicted in federal court of stealing tuition and other monies from hundreds of families and spending the money on plastic surgery, vacations and gambling. Fifty-three-year-old Mehdi Belhassan, of Tampa, Florida, was found guilty of two counts of wire fraud Thursday and will be sentenced Jan. 11. Belhassan falsely claimed he was running an annual sports camp at a Boston-area college and collected $380,000 in payments from more than 300 families across the United States. A charge of wire fraud carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.