76-Year-Old Mainer Gets Caught Stealing $4.2 Million in Massive Ponzi Scheme
Quick... check your wallets! Turns out, not all senior citizens are on a fixed income.
76-year-old William Bischoff from York, who until recently ran Genesis Investments Group in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has pleaded guilty to stealing more than 4 million dollars in what federal prosecutors are describing as a massive Ponzi-like scheme.
According to reporting in the Bangor Daily News, Bischoff was a well-respected member of the southern Maine community, running an investment firm for many years... until he defrauded some of his closest friends and financial confidants, and ran away with their money.
Bischoff just pleaded guilty to several financial crimes in federal court, including fraud and tax evasion, the BDN reported. Turns out, in addition to the stealing, he also failed to pay almost half a million dollars on his ill-gotten gains to the IRS! See... that's how they getcha!
So... what the hell is a Ponzi scheme? It's when you lure financial clients by promising massive returns on investments, but instead of actually investing their money, you steal it, and use subsequent investors' money to pay the first clients, and on and on. He did this to the tune of more than $4 million between 2009 and 2017, until he was caught by federal authorities, the newspaper reported.
The real crime still remains to be seen... did he ever get the senior discount at Denny's? These are the important questions, and the good men and women at the FBI in Boston are on the case.