A concert promoter who toured the likes of The Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, Aerosmith, David Bowe, Elton John, and Britney Spears has been sentenced to 18 years prison time for running his company as a ponzi scheme which defrauded investors out of $200 million.
As Yahoo News reports, 73-year-old Jack Utsick was handed close to the maximum sentence after pleading guilty to a mail fraud charge. Utsick’s Worldwide Entertainment Inc defrauded nearly 3,000 investors, most of them former airline pilots who’ve now lost their life’s savings.
Utsick’s lawyers insisted their client suffered from bipolar disorder that impaired his business judgement and never intended to defraud his investors nor profit from the ponzi scheme he was running, allegedly by happenstance.
Utsick insisted he simply faced a cash flow problem and as a result was forced to pay off old investors with money given by new investors. Unlike other famous ponzi scheme lords, like Bernie Madoff, Utsick’s life was not lavish and he did not own mansions or exotic cars.
Still, Utsick’s company is responsible for robbing many of their retirement money or children’s college payments. “It matters not, at the end of the day, whether on day one his intentions were good,” the judge who sentenced the promoter said.
“There are far too many victims who suffered far too many losses. Too many lives ruined.” In addition to redirecting new investments to old investors, Utsick also lied about the financial state of his company, insisting his tours were turning a profit when they weren’t.
Overall, Utsick’s investors lost some $207 million. This included George Ceshker, a 70-year-old former American Airlines pilot who spoke to Yahoo News about losing 40 percent of his retirement fund, which forced him back into the workforce with “no hope of ever retiring again”.
