URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Ponzi Schemer And Recidivist Felon Robert Stinson Jr. Sentenced To More Than 33 Years For ‘Life’s Good’ Caper
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Robert Stinson Jr., the Philadelphia-area Ponzi schemer who was wiring stolen funds from one account to another even as the FBI was conducting a raid in 2010, has been sentenced to 400 months in federal prison. The term amounts to more than 33 years.
Stinson, a 57-year-old securities huckster and recidivist felon whose criminal record dates back at least to 1986, defrauded more than 260 investors out of more than $17 million in his most recent scam, federal prosecutors said.
The scam operated through an entity known as Life’s Good Inc. and featured false claims that Stinson was a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a fabulously successful businessman.
In reality, he was a serial huckster who’d twice filed for bankruptcy and was enjoined in a 1990 SEC case from breaking federal securities laws.
At 12:06 p.m. on June 29, 2010 — the date of the raid and while federal agents were executing search warrants and seizing two Mercedes Benz sedans Stinson had purchased with money stolen from investors — Stinson began a series of wire transactions in which he moved at least $225,000 to prevent the cash from being seized, according to the indictment.
Two of the transactions occurred during the same minute and involved two separate banks, according to the indictment.
Stinson’s wife, Susan L. Stinson, is scheduled to be sentenced tomorrow on charges of obstructing the SEC’s 2010 investigation into her husband.
U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania presided over Robert Stinson’s sentencing today. In addition to ordering Stinson jailed for decades, Baylson ordered restitution of $14 million and three years’ supervised release when Stinson leaves jail.
Stinson will be close to the age of 90 if he survives the term of incarceration.
Court filings suggest Stinson tried to defeat a court-ordered asset freeze and continued to commit fraud even after the actions by the FBI and SEC in 2010.
The Philadelphia Daily News is reporting tonight that Stinson told the judge today that he’d “changed” while awaiting sentencing and had dedicated his life to serving God.
[…] scheme centering on offshore CDs. (Wise surrendered earlier this week.) And then there’s Robert Stinson Jr., the Pennsylvania Ponzi swindler now doing more than 33 years for his “Life’s […]