Say this for Charles Ponzi, the erstwhile Italian-American businessman who spent some of his early earning years as an assistant bank teller in Montreal. He left a legacy that’s hard to shake.
And it continues to grow.
Add two more cons, thousands more victims looking for an easy financial fix, and tens of millions more dollars to Ponzi’s financial patrimony. And, oh yeah, one other thing: jail time.
On Tuesday in Calgary, a judge sentenced Gary Sorenson, 71, and Milowe Brost, 61, to 12 years in prison for one of the largest Ponzi schemes in Canadian history.
Both Sorensen and Brost were found guilty of fraud and theft in February for an elaborate scheme in which investors were promised unrealistic returns.
Brost was also found guilty of money laundering for which he received a separate, but concurrent, sentence.
Through their efforts, 2,400 investors were bilked out of $100 million to $400 million between 1999 and 2008.
In announcing the sentences, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Robert Hall set some heavy restrictions on the pair: “Each of the offenders is prohibited from seeking, obtaining or continuing any employment or becoming a volunteer in any capacity that involves having authority over the real property, money or valuable security of another person for a period of 20 years.”
Ponzi schemes involve taking funds from new investors and using them to pay old ones.
Born in Italy in 1882, Ponzi arrived on the shores of North America aboard the SS Vancouver in 1903.
He died in a charity hospital in Rio de Janeiro in 1949. Broke.
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