{"id":17797,"date":"2015-11-29T12:58:05","date_gmt":"2015-11-29T20:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=17797"},"modified":"2015-11-29T12:58:05","modified_gmt":"2015-11-29T20:58:05","slug":"17797-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=17797","title":{"rendered":"Feds: Man Convinced People to Withdraw Retirement Money to Invest in Bogus Companies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">SYRACUSE, NY<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Courtroom-federal.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-17795 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Courtroom-federal-300x223.jpg\" alt=\"Courtroom federal\" width=\"300\" height=\"223\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Courtroom-federal-300x223.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Courtroom-federal.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>A federal grand jury indicted a 70-year-old man for selling a bogus retirement annuity that guaranteed lifetime income, officials announced last week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It resulted in more than $1.6 million being invested by consumers, officials said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It is alleged that defendant <strong>Ames P. Griffin<\/strong> received at least $370,000 from investors that had come from tax sheltered retirement plans, according to authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The indictment alleges\u00a0that\u00a0Griffin 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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In July, Griffin was indicted on charges that the 54 Freedom companies\u00a0allowed a person to make a gift to charity and still receive income for himself or others.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Griffin also represented that the 54 Freedom Charitable Gift Annuity was backed by a highly rated major insurance carrier.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The investors initially received monthly payments as promised, but these regular payments stopped in approximately January 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Griffin was arrested on July 23. \u00a0He pled not guilty to the charges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">On November 25, 2015 a federal grand jury in Syracuse returned a superseding indictment that charges Griffin with five additional counts of mail fraud.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Additionally, Griffin allegedly said the investment funds would be \u201crolled over\u201d into another tax sheltered account\u00a0or that Griffin would pay any tax or penalty due on the early distribution of the retirement account monies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The indictment alleges that the investments were not profitable and the funds were not rolled over into tax sheltered accounts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"> 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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Griffin\u00a0is\u00a0charged with ten counts of mail fraud, eight counts of wire fraud, and five counts of money laundering. \u00a0If 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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Each count carries a maximum fine of $250,000.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal grand jury indicted a 70-year-old man for selling a bogus product called 54 Freedom Charitable Gift Annuity that guaranteed lifetime income.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3],"tags":[473,1787,1966,1965],"class_list":["post-17797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-main-slider","category-u-s-department-of-justice","tag-fraud","tag-investment","tag-lifetime-income","tag-retirement-account"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Feds: Man Convinced People to Withdraw Retirement Money to Invest in Bogus Companies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A federal grand jury indicted a 70-year-old man for selling a bogus product called 54 Freedom Charitable Gift Annuity that guaranteed lifetime income.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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