INDIANAPOLIS – A guy from Lebanon was found guilty of operating an investment scheme that was similar to Ponzi and received a sentence of more than seven years in prison.
The case involved a single count of wire fraud, and Brian Simms entered a guilty plea to that count. Additionally, the United States Attorney’s Office dropped additional allegations of wire fraud in exchange for his guilty plea.
A federal judge handed down a sentence that requires Simms to serve a total of 90 months (7.5 years) in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release. In addition, he was mandated to make restitution payments of $2.6 million.
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An investigation into the matter was carried out jointly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Indiana Securities Division.
According to Diego Morales, the Secretary of State for Indiana, “Simms’ sentence reflects the ongoing efforts of collaboration between law enforcement agencies to protect Hoosier investors.” His statement was made. In order to ensure that investment fraud is investigated and disrupted, the Securities Division will continue to collaborate with our partner authorities in order to probe these sorts of criminal activity.
In September of 2022, federal prosecutors issued a statement announcing that they will be filing charges against Simms. Although he was permitted to sell insurance, he was not licensed to offer securities or registered to provide financial advisory services. He was the proprietor of Brendanwood Financial Brokerage LLC, which was located in Carmel.
However, according to fox59, Simms was successful in persuading twenty individuals to get their assets liquidated and send their money to his firm so that it might be reinvestment. $15,000 to $1.4 million was the range of the amounts that were provided by the victims.
Simms used the money for his own personal purposes and made payments to other investors in a manner similar to that of a Ponzi scheme. Even though the money was money that Simms had gotten from other individuals, the investors thought it was a return on their individual investments.
He allegedly provided his victims with fabricated financial statements in order to maintain the appearance of legitimacy, as stated by the prosecution.
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