Ponzi Scheme

EAGLES TIGHT end Brent Celek, former Eagles Kevin Curtis and A.J. Feeley, and Feeley's wife, newly minted Olympic soccer gold-medalist Heather Mitts, are suing an alleged rogue financial adviser who dragged them into a Ponzi scheme, according to documents filed Thursday in federal court in Philadelphia. According to court documents, William Crafton, of San Diego, intentionally made misleading statements to execute investments that were not in his clients' best interest. The athletes told Crafton they wanted him to use a conservative investment strategy to ensure that their financial assets would grow over time, the documents allege.

A Montgomery County man has received an eight-year federal prison sentence for defrauding 39 friends, family members and others of more than $5 million in a Ponzi scheme involving construction projects in the Bahamas and Costa Rica. Edward Ronald Schnable Jr. of Souderton pounced on vulnerable moments in the lives of his victims, including a widow, a retiree with a lump-sum pension, and people with medical problems looking for secure income, according to victims' testimony Thursday at Schnable's sentencing hearing.

A British financier who prosecutors say ran an international Ponzi scheme that cheated U.S. citizens out of $14.2 million was sentenced to five years in prison yesterday by a federal judge who bemoaned the leniency of federal sentencing law for financial crimes. "This was an extremely large fraud that ruined the finances, and in some instances the lives, of many people," U.S. District Judge Edmund V. Ludwig told Keith Fryer, 54, adding that the federal sentencing guidelines' prison term was "very much on the low side.

The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday accused a Coatesville investment adviser of a $23 million fraud that allegedly ensnared dozens of wealthy residents of Chester County's fabled horse country. In a civil filing, regulators said Donald Anthony Walker Young, who is known as Tony Young, used money from new investors to pay previous investors and "stole some of the money to purchase a vacation home in Palm Beach, Fla. " They also alleged that Young, 38, who lives near Coatesville, used investor money to "pay personal expenses related to horse ownership and racing, construction, boats, limousines, chartered aircraft and other luxuries," the SEC said.

A British con artist yesterday was sentenced to five years in prison by a federal judge in Philadelphia for swindling more than $8 million from dozens of local investors, including two city judges. U.S. District Judge Edmund V. Ludwig told the defendant, Keith Fryer, 54, that his "extremely large fraud" had "ruined the finances, and in some instances, the lives of many people. " Municipal Court President Judge Alan Silberstein and Common Pleas Judge Myrna Fields were listed among the scam's 88 victims, prosecutors said.

Robert Stinson Jr. must have one hell of a sense of humor. "The strength of a company is derived from the integrity of its employees," reads a line on the Web site for one of his investment companies, Keystone State Capital Corp. Ready for the punch line? Stinson, a convicted felon from Berwyn, Chester County, was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday of using his companies to run a Ponzi scheme that's bilked $16 million from more than 140 investors. His wife, Susan, and several other relatives are allegedly part of the scheme.

AT HIS sentencing Tuesday, a federal prosecutor said that Robert Stinson Jr. had a three-decade long career as a "cunning and deadly" con man. U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson sentenced the five-time fraudster to more than 33 years in federal prison. Authorities said that Stinson, 57, bilked at least 263 investors out of more than $14 million in a Ponzi scheme that was shut down by the Securities & Exchange Commission in 2010. Stinson's scheme collapsed in June 2010, when law-enforcement officials raided the local offices of his company, Life's Good Inc., which Stinson started in 2006.

Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges Friday against Robert Stinson Jr. for allegedly defrauding 260 investors of $17 million in a Ponzi scheme that was halted in June by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Stinson's Philadelphia company, Life's Good Inc., promised returns of 10 percent to 16 percent through real estate investments, but in reality Stinson used investors' money for himself and his family, and to pay earlier participants to perpetuate the scheme, the government alleged.

Robert Stinson Jr.'s three-decade career as a "cunning and deadly" con man earned him 33 years in federal prison at his sentencing Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson sentenced the five-time fraudster for bilking at least 263 investors out of more than $14 million in a Ponzi scheme that was shut down in 2010 by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Stinson's scheme collapsed in June 2010 when law enforcement officials raided the Philadelphia offices of his company, Life's Good Inc., which Stinson started in 2006.

Clients of Joseph S. Forte learned yesterday that the Broomall investment manager was a complete fraud who made up wild assertions about how much money he managed, went years without investing anything at all, and took millions of their dollars for himself. "It's amazing how long you can go" before a scheme like Forte's collapses, said David Baratko, a New Jersey resident who first invested with Forte about 18 months ago. The fund began in 1995. The scope of the alleged fraud, which ensnared nearly 80 wealthy investors in the Philadelphia area and beyond, emerged from civil charges filed late Wednesday by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.