New York lawyer gets prison after detailing fraud in suicide note

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

New York lawyer gets prison after detailing fraud in suicide note
By Nate Raymond

May 19, 2016

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York lawyer was sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday for running a more than $5 million Ponzi scheme that he detailed in a lengthy suicide note that authorities discovered when they rescued him from the Hudson River.

Charles Bennett, 58, wept after some of the friends and family who were victims of his years-long scheme urged U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain in Manhattan to take no pity on him despite his suicide attempt.

"The scar is too deep, but prison time will help with the healing," said Hope Mullan, one of several members of her family that counted among his victims.

Bennett, who lives in Minnesota with his mother, a victim of the scheme, pleaded guilty in October 2015 to securities fraud and wire fraud. In court, he called himself a "criminal, a thief and a liar" and said he could not explain his conduct.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/york-lawyer-gets-prison-detailing-fraud-suicide-note-213432446--sector.html?nhp=1

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Straight from the Movie

"Kind Hearts and Coronets"

Marvelous!

[WhiteTara]

2. what a putz

""What started in a cloud of cocaine use, a sudden fall into insolvency, and a crippling insecurity snowballed into a years-long Ponzi scheme from under which Mr. Bennett could not escape," Gatto wrote.

Bennett's November 2014 leap into the Hudson River came after investors began demanding repayment, prosecutors said."What started in a cloud of cocaine use, a sudden fall into insolvency, and a crippling insecurity snowballed into a years-long Ponzi scheme from under which Mr. Bennett could not escape," Gatto wrote.

Bennett's November 2014 leap into the Hudson River came after investors began demanding repayment, prosecutors said."