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An insurance broker who stole more than $1.2 million from clients has been sentenced to more than four years in federal prison.
Bruce Ford, 50, was sentenced to 51 months after pleading guilty to five counts of wire fraud and two counts of money laundering, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana announced Thursday.
“This defendant took advantage of the trust of Hoosier workers and retirees to steal the hard-earned savings intended to provide for the retirements they’d planned,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Zachary A. Myers said in a news release.
In April 2012, Ford created Ford Financial and Insurance Services, where he promoted investment services to current and former insurance clients and others despite not being registered with the Insurance Securities Division, which is required by law.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Ford promised higher returns on his client’s investments than they would have gotten from long-term investment products like Individual Retirement Accounts and 401(k)s. He had his clients cash out their retirement and other investment accounts and transfer the money to self-directed IRAs.
Rather than invest the funds in real estate and business ventures as promised, Ford transferred the victims’ investment money out of their SDIRAs to his own personal bank accounts and used the stolen money for his own purposes, including to pay his personal credit cards and to purchase goods, services, a mobile-home, land and a recreational vehicle.
Some of his victims were already retired or approaching retirement.
Ford concealed his scheme for five years through Ponzi scheme-type payments by using the funds taken to pay purported returns to others.
All told, he stole $1,264,208.13 from his victims.
“Crooks operating Ponzi schemes under the guise of providing financial services must be identified and held accountable for their crimes. The sentence imposed today is the result of our commitment —together with the FBI, Indiana’s Securities Division and all of our law enforcement partners — to protect investors from fraud,” Myers said in the news release.
Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales, whose office includes the Securities Division, also responded to the sentencing.
“This case reflects the ongoing efforts to protect Hoosier investors,” Morales said in a statement. “The Securities Division will continue to work with our partner agencies to investigate these types of crimes and ensure criminal activity is investigated and disrupted. These criminals deserve to be held accountable.”
In imposing the sentence, Indiana Southern District Court Judge James Sweeney also ordered Ford to be supervised by the U.S. Probation Office for three years following his release from federal prison. Ford was also ordered to pay $1,089,708.13 in restitution.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany Preston prosecuted the case.
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