Ponzi Scheme

U.S. District Court Judge Josephine L. Staton sentenced Bich Quyen Nguyen of San Jose, California to 12 and a half years in prison and ordered her to pay almost $25 million in restitution for operating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded over 250 investors. A jury found Nguyen guilty of conspiring to commit wire fraud last year. According to Nguyen's attorney, his client received less than half of the statutory maximum sentence of thirty years due to mitigating factors, including her age of 60 and that she had been abused and had lived a tough life. Nguyen had been in custody for over a year while she awaited her sentencing, and her attorney believes she will be released in approximately nine years. Interestingly, the amount of money lost by investors was charged to be $9.5 million. Judge Staton, however, considered the higher total of almost $25 million during her sentencing. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Central District of [...]

MyFoxAL.com - FOX6 WBRC Birmingham, AL The Frankowski Firm is currently representing 24 investors between the ages of 36 and 93 in four civil suits against Bryan Anderson of Hoover, Alabama and his former employers. In his criminal case, Anderson is expected to plead guilty at a hearing scheduled for February 25 to one count each of securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Anderson allegedly defrauded investors out of over $3 million. According to court documents in his criminal case, "Anderson falsely told investors they would receive a guaranteed rate of return" and that "Anderson falsely assured Investors they could access their money at any time, that their principal was always protected." The Frankowski Firm's Richard Frankowski stated, "These entities participated in the wrongful conduct, in part, by failing to adequately hire, train, and supervise their employees and by failing to establish and maintain controls that would have prevented the financial losses. My clients placed the utmost trust in [...]

Donald Babb and Ralph Ruth, both of central Florida, were sentenced to ten years in federal prison and were ordered to pay $18.7 million in restitution by a federal judge in Orlando. The pair is alleged to have defrauded investors out of nearly $19 million, and both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud last year. Investigators claim that the two Floridians misrepresented their businesses as financial institutions that were federally insured and advertised risk-free certificates of deposit for investment opportunities. Neither of the two bought certificates of deposit for their investors but rather used the cash to pay back earlier investors or to purchase luxury items and real estate for themselves. According to authorities, Babb and Ruth targeted primarily elderly investors, and an investigation found that 181 investors, most of whom were from Brevard County, trusted the men to make conservative investments. The victims trusted that the investments were being made to sustain their retirements and financial futures [...]

Daniel Spitzer of North Barrington, Illinois, who blew almost $1 million at a casino in Las Vegas after thieving millions from investors, was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison this week. Authorities believe that Spitzer operated a Ponzi scheme for roughly six years, bilking almost 300 investors out of $34 million, including his own brother-in-law. Spitzer pleaded guilty in July to ten counts of mail fraud. In arguing for a prolonged sentence, U.S. Attorney Madeleine Murphy stated, "It's horrifying what happened to these people, many who are elderly people who are left with absolutely nothing." According to prosecutors, Spitzer acquired about $105 million in investments but used much of the money to pay off old investors to keep the scheme going. To conceal his scheme, he issued false statements to investors that inflated their profits. Spitzer promised returns of up to 184%. Yet he only invested about $30 million of the money he had raised. Simultaneously, he lived extravagantly, spending [...]