The founder of a phony New Jersey logistics company will spend some real time behind bars for bilking investors, including members of his own family, of $5.8 million.
U.S. District Judge Renee M. Bumb sentenced Glyn Richards, 45, to 30 years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme under the cover of a company called All Freight Logistics of Audobon, N.J. Richards conned 62 people into investing in his company from 2005 through 2007, telling them he had a federal contract to ship military equipment abroad and needed money to pay "upfront costs and expenses" to overseas agents and steamship lines.
It was all a swindle, Richards admitted when he pleaded guilty to mail fraud and money laundering last June. According to several news reports, Richards promised high returns on investments. He promised one investor $36,000 within four months of a $25,000 investment, according to the federal indictment in the case. He paid some of his early investors with cash from later victims, but most received no money at all.
“You didn’t even care about your own family,” Judge Bumb said during the June 30 sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Camden, N.J., according to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. She noted that he skipped his father-in-law's funeral to attend an alleged business meeting and stole from grandparents.
The judge threw the book and more at Richards, exceeding the sentence requested by prosecutors. She noted that he jumped bail in January, fleeing to Florida, where he was arrested in February. "I just went off the deep end," Richards told the judge.
The judge scheduled a restitution hearing for September.
Contact William B. Cassidy at wcassidy@joc.com.
