• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

F.H. Man Given 10 Years for Fraud: $19M Taken From Annuities Firm Went to Personal Account, Funded Lavish Lifestyle

Posted on: Tuesday, 21 March 2006, 15:00 CST

By Mike Sakal, The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.

Mar. 21--A Fountain Hills man who fleeced the elderly while working under the cover of a charitable gift annuities firm has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for bilking investors out of $44 million.

Robert Roy Dillie, 50, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell in Phoenix on March 13 after he pleaded guilty to nine counts of money laundering and wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix announced on Monday.

Dillie, owner and president of Delaware-based Mid-America Foundation, diverted $19 million of the $52 million raised from 300 investors to a personal account.

Between 1997 to 2001, Dillie used the funds to pay other investors and to support a lavish lifestyle.

Dillie gambled away $10 million at casinos in Las Vegas, spent $595,000 toward the purchase of a $1.5 million house and bought a Mercedes automobile prior to his indictment by a federal grand jury in February 2003, a news release by the U.S. Attorney's Office stated.

Upon selling the charitable gift annuities, Dillie falsely told investors from around the United States that they would receive annuity payments for life and tax-free income.

He also promised tax deductions and told investors they could bypass capital gains by investing their money into his organization's "Maximum Gift Annuity" program.

He also told investors that upon their death, a portion of their investment would go to a charity of their choice.

Josephine Soinski of Tucson estimated Monday that she and her husband lost $100,000 to Dillie's scam.

"I'm glad there's some closure," Soinski said. "At least he didn't get away with it altogether. It's been hard on me because my husband passed away two months after we found out we were broke. We received our last check from Mid-America in September 2001. I'm living in an independent living facility now. I was counting on having that money, and now, it won't be there."

In December 2001 the U.S. District Court of Arizona granted a temporary restraining order against Dillie and his company to halt his investment scam at the request of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

An investigation was launched into Dillie's activities by the Criminal Division of the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in late 2001 after many of his investors stopped receiving "returns" on their investments, said Jim McCormick, an IRS spokesman.

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Tribune

More News in this Category