Convicted Ponzi schemer Tim Durham is crying foul over a presentencing report that recommends the disgraced Indianapolis businessman spend 225 years in prison and pay more than $200 million in restitution to victims of Fair Finance Company.
The presentencing report is not available to the public. However, Durham’s attorney, John Tompkins, revealed contents of the report in a 38-page filing on Oct. 31, calling the proposed sentence “absurd.”
Durham’s fate, along with co-defendants Jim Cochran and Rick Snow, will be decided on Nov. 30 by Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson. In June, a federal jury found Durham guilty on all 12 felony charges stemming from the collapse of Akron, Ohio-based Fair Finance.
Prosecutors in the case allege that after Durham and Cochran bought Fair Finance in 2002, they used it as their own personal piggy bank to fund their lavish lifestyles and to cover financial losses at various businesses they owned.
Prosecutors say that the huge withdrawals allegedly made by Durham were recorded as “loans,” and ultimately left Fair Finance unable to repay 5,000 Ohio residents who purchased more than $200 million of the company’s unsecured investment certificates.
FBI agents raided and shut Fair Finance down in November 2009.