Delaware Businessman Sentenced to Federal Prison In Multi-Million Dollar Ponzi Scheme
WILMINGTON, Del. – David C. Weiss, U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, announced today that Carl Chen, owner of Chenmax Properties, Inc., a Delaware Real Estate Investment Trust, and part-owner of Re/Max Sunvest Realty Co., was sentenced today in federal court in Delaware to 51 months in prison. Chen pled guilty in March 2019 to wire fraud emanating out of a multi-year Ponzi scheme he orchestrated.
According to court documents and statements made at the hearing, Chen operated Chenmax Properties since 1997, soliciting large real estate investments from his real-estate clients and others. Chen promised his investors guaranteed interest and a full return of their principal payments. However, by 2013, Chen’s business was losing money, and Chen began diverting newly invested funds to pay prior investors.
The government calculated that Chen fraudulently collected at least $3.32 million in investments from twenty different victims between 2013 and 2017. In October 2017, Chen declared bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, seeking to discharge $6.738 million of debt he owed to investors, including the victims of his fraud.
United States District Judge Richard G. Andrews, who sentenced Chen, noted that the case was “One of the most horrendous white collar offenses that I remember seeing.”
Read more: https://www.justice.gov/usao-de/pr/delaware-businessman-sentenced-federal-prison-multi-million-dollar-ponzi-scheme