A New York oil futures trader gets ten years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme which bilked investors out of more than $1.4 million. A Texas federal judge sentenced Christopher Donrick Daley this week after Daley was convicted last September following a two-day jury trial on wire and mail fraud charges.
The judge also ordered the 33-year old Daley to pay $614,950 in restitution. Daley will also serve three years of supervised release once he’s released from prison. U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes offered little sympathy for Daley.
“You actually sat down with their children when you knew you were stealing them blind,” said the Judge in handing down the sentence.
Daley devised a scheme to defraud investors by falsely representing he operated a commodity pool which invested in oil futures contracts which would pay investors return of at least 20% per month and had never had a losing month. The evidence at trial showed that Daley received more than $1.4 million in investor funds, but he only invested approximately $195,000.
Daley lost all the investors funds he did invest.
The evidence also proved that Daley emailed monthly statements to his investors showing significant monthly returns when there were none. Daley also used money from the investor funds to purchase a new BMW and Range Rover.