Fraud artist given five-year prison term for similar scam
John Ross Greer was sentenced to five years in federal prison Wednesday three decades after he was sentenced to 10 years in a similar, high-profile $ 1 million scam.
Greer, 59, said to have considerable health problems, pleaded guilty in May to one count of mail fraud. He also was ordered to pay more than $ 627,000 in restitution to more than a dozen victims.
"His criminal history has been good except when he's running a Ponzi scheme," said U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. in Richmond shortly before sentencing Greer to a stiffer term than called for under federal sentencing guidelines.
"This is his second time around. I don't want there to be a third time around," said the judge. Gibney denied a request from Greer's lawyer, John W. Luxton, that Greer be allowed to surrender to prison officials later on his own.
Gibney questioned Greer's mental health given the circumstances of the crime and his filthy living arrangements – agents searching his apartment were said to have worn protective clothing.
"As Mr. Luxton so accurately put it, something's missing," said Gibney. "Candidly, you know, he's such a mess that I'm not sure he's capable of self-reporting."
Greer, as the president and sole shareholder of Unusual Villas and Island Rentals since 1995, was a broker between villa owners and vacationers wishing to rent them.
The business was successful and legitimate until the economy went bad in 2008 and he started keeping the vacationers' funds that were supposed to go to villa owners. New funds coming in were used to pay old claims in a Ponzi scheme of sorts.
In 1981, Greer, the son of a clergyman, was a fugitive for a year after federal authorities began searching for him in a $ 1 million fraud that victimized hundreds.
In 1982, Greer, then 29, was convicted in federal court in Richmond of seven counts of mail fraud, seven counts of wire fraud, six counts of interstate transportation of money taken by fraud and an aiding and abetting charge.
He served four years of a 10 year sentence and was released in 1986.
On Wednesday Jessica Aber Brumberg, an assistant U.S. Attorney, asked for a 60-month sentence, stiffer than the roughly three-year term called for under sentencing guidelines.
"Mr. Greer is a repeat fraudster … who spent four years in federal prison and six years on probation," she said.
"It didn't work too well, did it," asked Gibney. "No, it didn't," said Brumberg.
Brumberg said that, "Mr. Greer, in the end, took $ 627,000. No one knows where it is."
Luxton said that Greer kept only one business checking account and no escrow account for his clients. When the economy nosedived in 2008, he had to lay off five employees who, unlike Greer, were skilled at running the nuts and bolts of the business.
Unlike others who commit large frauds, Luxton said that Greer was not living the "high life."
"He was living like a hermit, a filthy hermit," said Luxton who showed Gibney photographs of Greer's apartment and automobile, prompting the judge to say they looked like something from the television show about hoarders.
"We don't know where the money is," said Luxton. Some of it may have been used to buy expensive advertising for the business, he said. "He tells me he wants to make restitution. I don't know whether he could or couldn't," said Lutxon.
"He has nothing, he has no property of any kind," he said of his client.
Greer, who has diabetes, foot trouble and weighs 336 pounds, was allowed to sit as he addressed Gibney shortly before he was sentenced.
"I apologize for everything that happened and I hope to pay back the money as soon as possible," said Greer. "I'm an idea man and I have some very good ideas," but, he said, he was not capable of running the business rental on his own.
Read More @ Source Tahir Ul Qadri is a FRAUD - CAUGHT LYING SEVERAL TIMES!
Fraudulent Stories Here
Comments
Post a Comment