Thursday, December 3, 2009

Minnesota Man Convicted in $3.6 Billion Ponzi Scheme

ST. PAUL, Minn. (Reuters) — A federal jury on Wednesday found the business executive Tom Petters guilty of orchestrating a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme.

Mr. Petters, 52, the founder of the Petters Group Worldwide was convicted on counts including wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering.

He sat stone-faced, staring at the judge after the verdict by the jury of seven women and five men found was read.

Prosecutors had accused Mr. Petters of using one of his companies, the Petters Company, to bilk investors who thought he was using their money to buy consumer electronics for resale to retailers like the Costco Wholesale Corporation and BJ’s Wholesale Club.

The defense maintained that Mr. Petters did not know about the fraud until just before his offices were raided, and that the scheme was engineered by others. Among these were two former top executives, the whistleblower Deanna Coleman and Bob White, who pleaded guilty in the case.

Mr. Petters’ operations once included businesses like Polaroid and Sun Country Airlines Inc, but went bankrupt last year after Petters was hit with 20 counts of fraud, money laundering and other charges.


for full article see link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/business/03ponzi.html?_r=1&ref=business

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