John Langford, a 77 year old Texas businessman has been sentenced to 15 years in prison by an Amarillo judge. Langford targeted senior citizens in his close to $7 million securities fraud scam.

In addition to selling the securities, Langford ran an insurance company and a property management firm.

According to Prosecutor Randall Sims, Langford was using new investment funds to pay off previous clients. The man pleaded guilty and was sentenced to seven 15-year prison terms for fraudulent sales of securities, four 10-year terms for acting as a dealer or agent without registration and four more 10-year terms for selling unregistered securities.

The prison terms will be served concurrently.

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Former Triton Financial chief executive Kurt Barton was led from the Austin federal courthouse handcuffed yesterday after a federal jury found him guilty of all 39 counts against him.

“I think justice did prevail,” said Dr. Sue Knolle, a retired ophthalmologist and the aunt of Barton’s ex-wife who, with her husband, lost more than $3 million in retirement savings investing with Barton.

Barton, 43, faces decades in prison at his November 4 sentencing. After the verdicts were read in court, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks ordered Barton jailed despite requests from Barton’s lawyers that he remain free on bond.

When asked what kind of sentence Barton deserves, Knolle said, “I hate to say this, but the longer the better.”

Among Barton’s victims were a bank president, a retired teacher, pro football players, and a woman who gave Barton about $850,000 she received from a life insurance payment when her husband died.

Barton was convicted of conspiracy, securities fraud, 15 counts of wire fraud, five counts of false statement related to a loan and 17 counts of money laundering.

“Kurt Barton betrayed everyone involved,” prosecutor Mark Lane said. “While there’s justice today for Mr. Barton, I’m not sure there’s justice for all these victims.”

Related article: Austin businessman on trial for ponzi scheme targeting pro athletes

Full article: http://www.statesman.com/news/local/barton-found-guilty-on-all-39-counts-of-1757300.html

Benjamin Koifman was sentenced to five years and three months in prison after pleading

guilty to conspiracy for his role in a scheme to cheat investors with a phony New York-based hedge fund.

According to prosecutors in the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, William Shternfeld and Koifman ran A.R. Capital Global Fund LP, an unregistered investment adviser, and ARC Global Fund, a hedge fund that said it invested in equity of international real estate.

The same judge that sentenced Koifman says he intends to impose the same sentence on Shternfeld in October after the defendant undergoes a medical evaluation.

From 2004 to 2006 Shternfeld and Koifman engaged in a scheme with co-conspirators to get at least 70 investors to invest about $20 million in the ARC Global Fund by making false statements about it, according to prosecutors.

While pleading to the judge for a light sentence, Koifman, 36, cried three times during his remarks in his hearing. “I did terrible things,” Koifman told Stein. “This mistake has caused people including my family to suffer.”

Koifmans sentence also included three years supervised probation and was ordered to pay restitution of $7 million. According to Judge Stein, the same probation and restitution will be ordered for Shternfeld. As part of their plea agreement, Koifman and Shternfeld have paid $50,000 of the restitution so far.

“He knew this was a fraud,” the judge said to Koifman’s lawyer, Arthur Gershfeld. “He kept calling elderly people. They took the money and ran. That’s pretty pernicious.”

Michael Rosen, Shternfeld’s lawyer, argued that the Bureau of Prisons may not be properly suited to treat Shternfeld, as he has oral cancer and needs adjustments in his mouth prosthesis every few months.

“I’m ready to be sentenced,” Shternfeld said in court. “But do I have to go through torture every day?”