A Texas man who assured investors for 9 years that he was investing their funds in businesses providing “excellent and innovative” products but was actually running a Ponzi scheme is headed to prison for 6-½ years for mail fraud.
65-year old Frederick Voight of Richmond was also ordered to pay $40.9-million dollars restitution by federal District Judge John Gerrard in Lincoln, where the charges covering victims in multiple states were filed.
Federal prosecutors say that between September 2009 and October 2018, Voight used the money from new investors and loans to make interest payments to prior investors instead of actually investing the funds in firms or paying back earlier loans.
One example cited by the U-S Attorney’s Office involved Nebraska victims in Holdrege who mailed a $45,000 loan to finance one of Voight’s companies, RevH20, in 2013. The money was used to make interest payments on other loans.
Ruth Mendonça, a postal inspector who helped lead the investigation, said Voight’s ability to defraud so many people illustrates how important it is to “exercise caution when investing, no matter how much trust you have in the individual or company you are investing with.”