Two people have been jailed for six years for their roles in a multimillion-dollar cattle-trading Ponzi scheme in the US.
The Ponzi scheme was operated from late-2017 until early 2019, by 71-year-old Reva Joyce Stachniw of Galesburg, Illinois, and 59-year-old Ron Throgmartin from Buford, Georgia, along with a co-conspirator.
They fraudulently told the victims that their investments were backed by short-term investments in Stachniw and Throgmartin’s cattle and marijuana businesses.
The US Department of Justice said that the fraud resulted in millions of dollars in losses for the victims involved.
Ponzi scheme
According to court documents, the co-conspirators would fraudulently represent to victim-investors that their investments were backed by short-term investments in cattle.
They also used false and fraudulent pretenses to solicit money from victims for the co-conspirators’ marijuana business, Universal Herbs LLC, which was based in Colorado.
Other victims gave money based on the co-conspirators’ false promises that investment money would be used for legitimate business activity related to cattle or marijuana, without having the investment money linked to specific investment opportunities.
In all three variations of the scheme, the victims were promised returns of approximately 10-20% over periods as short as several weeks.
In reality, the money that was taken from the victims was used to pay earlier investors.
From late-2017 and continuing through in or around early 2019, the co-conspirators raised approximately $650 million (€596 million) from victim-investors.
Despite putting little to none of their own money into the scheme, the co-conspirators transferred substantial amounts of the proceeds of their conspiracy and scheme to themselves for their personal benefit.
Court
In August 2022, Stachniw and Throgmartin were convicted at trial of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, five counts of wire fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
In addition to the six-year prison terms handed down on Friday (February 17), Stachniw was ordered to pay almost $14.6 million in restitution and to forfeit $6 million.
Throgmartin was also ordered to pay almost $14.6 million in restitution and to forfeit just over $1 million.