A Los Angeles-area man who orchestrated a Ponzi scheme that bilked 63 investors in California and Texas out of $44.2m has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Curtis Somoza, 41, who pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering charges on the second day of his trial in October of last year, was also ordered to pay full restitution to his victims. According to prosecutors and court documents, between July 2003 and May 2006, Somoza conspired with a man called Robert Coberly to solicit investors. The men falsely claimed that victims' money would be "invested in sophisticated bond trading programs or used to buy pools of life insurance policies purchased on behalf of parishioners of predominantly African-American churches in South Los Angeles".
The scam artists promised investors annual returns of 25 per cent and told them their "risk-free" investments would eventually yield five-to-one returns. In reality, the majority of the investors' funds were used by Somoza and Coberly to pay for multi-million
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