From St. Louis-A Clayton lawyer and American Anglican bishop who helped bilk more than 100 investors out millions of dollars with an overseas Ponzi scheme will be sentenced Dec. 28 to 40 years in federal prison, a judge’s memo issued Thursday says.
Martin Sigillito, 63, preyed on family, fellow church-goers and friends from the local country-club set from 1999 to 2010 with investment opportunities in the so-called “British Lending Program.”
Investors were told that their money was going to real estate investments in the United Kingdom, that the investments bore little or no risk and that they would earn high rates of return. They weren’t told that money from new investors went to pay off older investors and that Sigillito and others took fees that went as high as 32 percent of the money invested, wrote U.S. District Judge Linda Reade.
By 2009, the pyramid began to collapse. In 2010, after Sigillito’s secretary took her concerns to law enforcement, the FBI raided Sigillito’s office. The Ponzi scheme’s collapse has also spawned a federal civil suit.
More here-
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/clayton-lawyer-to-get-years-in-prison-for-million-ponzi/article_9a984708-47d4-503b-93f9-1de9e6569a0b.html
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