SYRACUSE, NY
A federal grand jury indicted a 70-year-old man for selling a bogus retirement annuity that guaranteed lifetime income, officials announced last week.
It resulted in more than $1.6 million being invested by consumers, officials said.
It is alleged that defendant Ames P. Griffin received at least $370,000 from investors that had come from tax sheltered retirement plans, according to authorities.
The indictment alleges that Griffin is the chief executive officer of several companies using a variation of the name 54 Freedom. These 54 Freedom companies are headquartered in New York.
In July, Griffin was indicted on charges that the 54 Freedom companies allowed a person to make a gift to charity and still receive income for himself or others.
Griffin also represented that the 54 Freedom Charitable Gift Annuity was backed by a highly rated major insurance carrier.
It is alleged, however, that the monies invested by clients were not used to purchase annuities from A rated insurance companies, but rather were used by Griffin for his own use and to pay expenses of the various 54 Freedom companies.
The investors initially received monthly payments as promised, but these regular payments stopped in approximately January 2013.
Griffin was arrested on July 23. He pled not guilty to the charges.
On November 25, 2015 a federal grand jury in Syracuse returned a superseding indictment that charges Griffin with five additional counts of mail fraud.
The new charges allege that Griffin fraudulently induced people to invest in his companies by using funds withdrawn from tax sheltered retirement accounts upon the false promise that the investments would be profitable.
Additionally, Griffin allegedly said the investment funds would be “rolled over” into another tax sheltered account or that Griffin would pay any tax or penalty due on the early distribution of the retirement account monies.
The indictment alleges that the investments were not profitable and the funds were not rolled over into tax sheltered accounts.
As a result, the investors did not realize a profit but also suffered an early withdrawal tax penalty on the funds invested, the indictment states.
Griffin is charged with ten counts of mail fraud, eight counts of wire fraud, and five counts of money laundering. If convicted of the charges , he faces up to 20 years on each of the mail and wire fraud counts and ten years on the money laundering counts, officials said.
Each count carries a maximum fine of $250,000.