A Lake Charles man has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in a $5.8 million Ponzi scheme, U.S. Attorney Stephanie Finley says.
As The Associated Press reports, 54-year-old John Steven Blount of Professional Consultants LLC admitted that regulators barred him in 2003 from working as an investment adviser, but he did so from June 2007 to December 2014. Finley says Blount put money from at least 73 investors into his own bank accounts and used about $1.7 million of it to pay earlier investors. Finley says most victims were Louisiana and Texas Gulf Coast retirees.
Blount is to be sentenced Oct. 22. He could get up to 20 years in prison, an $8.4 million fine and an order to repay his victims.
As KPLC-TV in Lake Charles has previously reported, Blount was initially arrested in December on two counts of theft over $1,500, stemming from charges first filed in May of last year. In January 2004, the National Association of Securities Dealers barred Blount from dealing with any NASD-related security firms and ordered him to pay $1.5 million in restitution for “scheming to defraud investors and to frustrate attempts by his employer to supervise his activities.”
The NASD said at the time that at least 10 customers were affected from 1998 to 2001, when Blount worked for NY Life Securities Inc.
