Charles Huggins is a music producer who had a hand in launching the careers of best-selling artists like Kenny G and Whitney Houston has been sentenced to a decade behind bars after being found guilty of running a con that scammed investors out of $8 million.

As Billboard reports, the former producer to the stars was sentenced on Wednesday after he was convicted for running a scam in which he told investors that he had ties to West African diamond mines, using the money to buy lavish gifts for himself via his record label.

Prosecutors in Manhattan federal court initially sought more than two decades in prison for Mr Huggins, portraying the 69-year-old defendant as a remorseless con man who purposefully bilked investors out of more than $8 million.

Huggins’ operation involved diverting investor money to one of his record labels and used it to pay for, among other things, a $7,200-a-month Manhattan apartment, maintenance on a Mercedes-Benz, pricey restaurant tabs, and clothes from expensive boutiques, court papers said.

Assistant US Attorney Edward Imperatore said Huggins, a New Jersey native, “acted out of pure greed, out of a desire to spend other people’s hard-earned money on himself.” The office of Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara had asked for a sentence of between 22 and 27 years.

Huggins was once the chief of Hush Productions and Orpheus Inc, but when his music ventures fell on hard times, he cooked up a scheme to convince dozens of investors across the US that they would see profit by letting him invest their savings in gold or diamonds mined in West Africa.

One of Huggins’ victims testified that she and her family handed over $1.6 million to the conman after seeing his lavish apartment and meeting him at a hotel, where he described a personal relationship with the president of Liberia and showed her diamonds.

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Other investors included an ex-NFL player. According to Billboard, part of Huggins’ scheme was to divert a portion of the proceeds to “make payments to other investors” as part of a Ponzi scheme, the same practice that saw disgraced stockbroker Bernie Madoff sentenced to 150 years in prison.

According to Business Insider, in court papers filed ahead of sentencing, Huggins’ lawyers said he was uneducated and “functionally illiterate” and that his use of new investor money to pay back others was not a Ponzi scheme, but simply a misguided effort to answer investor complaints.

Huggins’ defense argued that the loss incurred by investors was really closer to $2.3 million, and that Huggins deserved no more than six years in prison. US District Judge Sidney Stein agreed that Huggins had caused grievous harm to honest investors but called a sentence between 22 and 27 years excessive.

Judge Stein had received several defense submissions supporting Huggins, including a video from the producer’s ex-wife, soul singer Melba Moore. When asked on Wednesday if he wished to speak for himself, Huggins stood briefly and responded, “Your honor, at this time I have nothing to say.”

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