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TAMPA — A federal judge sentenced an Odessa man and two partners from England to prison for bilking investors out of more than $137 million in an international investment scheme that spanned continents and ensnared lawyers.
The funds, deposited in Florida accounts, were used to buy a Ferrari, an airplane, two vessels and real estate in the Caribbean islands, England and Florida. Authorities seized $5 million that will go to the investors, mostly in the United Kingdom and Ireland, who were victimized.
U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven sentenced Paul Robert Gunter, 64, to 25 years in prison on Tuesday for his role in the multi-year scheme that ended with his March 2008 arrest, says a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Middle District of Florida.
Simon Odoni, 56, was sentenced to 13 years and four months in prison; and Richard Pope, 55, was sentenced to four years and nine months. Both men lived in England, while Gunter, also an Englishman, lived in Hillsborough County.
The three were part of a sophisticated investment fraud and money laundering scheme, in which worthless stock in dormant, publicly traded companies in the United States was sold primarily in the United Kingdom, authorities say. Boiler room telemarketers, mostly in Spain, used high pressure techniques to sell the stock.
The victim-investors wired more than $127 million that was deposited in Gunter's Florida bank accounts. The conspirators bilked victim-investors out of another $10 million via a FOREX currency trading scheme, which also used boiler rooms in Spain.
In 2012, Houston lawyers Roger Lee Shoss and Nicolette Loisel were convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with their participation in the corporate identity theft aspect of the scheme, says the release.
“The three defendants sentenced today had no qualms with preying on innocent victims — many of them elderly U.K. citizens — to further their own assets,” says Susan McCormick, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations Tampa.
Gunter's daughter, Zibiah, was sentenced to a pretrial diversion program for her part in the scheme.
Still awaiting trial is a 48-year-old U.S. lawyer, formerly of New York and Florida. Lawrence S. Hartman, also known as Larry Hartman, Larry Hart and Lawrence Scott Hartman-Grosser, is accused of conspiring with the three men.
Hartman was extradited from Nicaragua in May 2013 to face trial for his involvement in the fraud scheme. He is a former associate of Costa Rica-based online gambling website BetUS.
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