DALLAS (CN) - A federal judge sentenced a California man to 23 years in prison for a $14 million investment scam in which he blew money on luxury cars, travel and jewelry.
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Bradley C. Stark, 37, also was ordered to pay $13 million in restitution.
He was convicted in January of seven counts of wire fraud and one count of securities fraud.
Stark ran Sardaukar Holdings out of his home in Riverside, Calif., promising investors 20 to 30 percent monthly returns. He claimed to manage hundreds of millions of dollars in investments that he put into "sophisticated financial transactions, including tri-party repurchase agreements, commodities futures and currency trading," prosecutors said in a statement.
But he blew a lot of the money on himself and gave his wife more than $1 million, prosecutors said.
"Stark also knowingly and intentionally failed to advise investors that he had been convicted in April 2003 of a federal felony offense, uttering a false and counterfeit security, and in May 2003 in the State of Colorado, of fraud by check," prosecutors added.
The largest investor in Sardaukar was Dallas-based Megafund Corp. It was run by government witness Stanley Leitner, who previously was convicted in Dallas Federal Court of wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. He is serving a 210-month prison sentence.
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