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Tuesday, March 19, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Ponzi Scammer Kept It in the Family

(CN) - A Beverly Hills hedge fund manager stole more than $25 million from his family and spent the money on cars, homes and high-stakes poker games, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles said. Bradley L. Ruder, 46, pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud after taking in more than $44 million by promising returns as high as 60 percent.

Ruderman told investors he had $206 million under management, though he had only $588,246 at the beginning of this year, prosecutors said.

The FBI found that Ruderman spent at least $8.7 million of his customers' money on personal expenses, including a summer rental on Malibu's Carbon Beach, two Porsches, and $5.2 million on "clandestine poker games held on a regular basis in a suite at a luxury Beverly Hills hotel."

"Ruderman admitted that he used much of the money to pay his own expenses and that he hid the misappropriation of investor money from his victims by sending them phony account statements that purported to show gains in their accounts," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement. "When the funds collapsed in April, Ruderman's investors had lost more than $25 million."

Ruderman faces a maximum of 51 years in prison.

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