Edward Okun, the
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U.S. District Judge Robert Payne gave his sentence Tuesday in a court in
Prosecutors sought a sentence of 400 years, or a similar term amounting to life in prison. Jurors in March found Okun, 58, guilty of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, smuggling and perjury following a three-week trial.
Okun argued that a term of 10 years to 15 years would suffice. He cited Bernard Madoff’s 150-year sentence, the maximum possible, in June for running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme, and lawyer Marc Dreier’s 20-year sentence last month for defrauding hedge funds of more than $400 million. Prosecutors sought 145 years for Dreier.
Instead of holding the money in banks, Okun used it as a “personal piggy bank” for expenses that included financing a divorce and buying jewelry for his new wife, prosecutors said.
Okun owned a 131-foot yacht, multimillion-dollar homes, a jet and a helicopter, according to court records. In 2007, Okun spent $56,252 on dinner with friends in the
Okun expanded the company in 2006 and 2007 by buying competitors and gaining access to their customers’ real-estate sale deposits. The company filed for bankruptcy in May 2007 and is being liquidated in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in
Lara Coleman, the former chief operating officer of Investment Properties of America, a company also owned by Okun, pleaded guilty on Jan. 6 to lying to investigators and conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud. She agreed to a sentence of 10 years in prison.
Robert D. Field II and Richard E. Simring also have pleaded guilty to participating in the conspiracy to defraud 1031 Tax Group’s customers. Field was the chief financial officer and Simring was the chief legal officer of a company set up in part to oversee Okun’s companies.
Before his company went bankrupt, Okun ignored the advice of several lawyers who said he was violating the law by using customer deposits to invest in real estate and buy personal items, prosecutors said.
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