A serial Ponzi scheme promoter, Lanny Lown, 40 — who posed as an international businessman operating under the name of One West Financial from 2001-03 and scammed nearly $15 million from hundreds of Houston Ship Channel-area retirees — has been sentenced to life in prison, the Houston Chronicle reports here.
State District Judge Michael Wilkinson on Monday also fined Lown $10,000 and ordered him to repay $14.9 million as a condition of any parole after serving at least 15 years. Grizzled courhouse veterans speculated that Lown would have a hard time raising that kind of money while serving his sentence.
In the understatement of the year to date, Lown’s defense attorney told the Chronicle that “he regretted allowing the judge, rather than the jury, decide the sentence.”