Probation for Partner in $82 million Ponzi Scheme That Targeted Christians

 By Steve Rabey - Posted at Ministry Watch:

Brad Heinrichs, who quoted scripture as he sold more than 100 investors—including his own parents—into an $82 million Ponzi scheme, was sentenced to a decade of supervised probation and house arrest, not the 69 years in prison he could have received for seven fraud counts.

Why so light a sentence for someone who was the front person for a massive scam?

Heinrichs’ attorney presented evidence that Heinrichs, who had sold the fake investments since 2005, was unaware he was involved in fraud, and when he realized it in 2014, he informed an investor and an accountant, helping bring the complex scheme to an end.

Stephen Hatch, the alleged mastermind of the fraud, was sentenced in 2017. He is “a con man who will spend the next five years behind bars for tricking Arizona families into investing in his Ponzi scheme,” said the Arizona attorney general.

Heinrichs’ attorney convinced the jury that Hatch had become a mentor to Heinrichs, a 2003 Point Loma Nazarene University graduate, so he could manipulate him into selling fraudulent real estate investments in Arizona, some of which promised annual returns of 25%.

Continue here...