A former San Bernardino County, Calif. sheriff’s deputy sheriff has been sentenced to 14 years inward a federal prison for bilking investors out of $7.5 million.
Christopher Harold Lloyd Burnell, 51, was described by US District Judge Michael W. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald as “one of the most evilness people that I get ever so dealt with inwards the law.”
Burnell used his practice of law enforcement past to win victims’ cartel and to persuade them to place inwards byplay opportunities that did not exist. Then he gambled forth their money, disbursal to a greater extent than $2 billion at the San Manuel tribe’s Yaamava’ Casino in Highland.
He also splurged $500,000 on private jet trips, $70,000 on Joe Louis Vuitton merchandise, and $175,000 on opulence cars and an apartment letting for his then-girlfriends, described past prosecutors as “Hooters calendar models.”
Litany of Lies
He told investors, falsely, he had won several jillion dollars from successful lawsuits against the Sheriff’s Department for injuries sustained inward the rail line of obligation and against Kaiser Permanente for medical malpractice.
He also claimed to get invented an air-cooled bulletproof vest, which he said he sold to Oakley Inc. for large sums of money.
From around November 2010 to Sept 2017, Burnell offered “exclusive investiture opportunities” with suspiciously high-pitched returns. Some victims were offered 100% on their investments to live delivered inwards a matter of weeks.
When victims became interested nearly their investmemts, he told them his money had been tied upwards inwards a combine fund, and his remaining assets had been seized past federal authorities.
He showed them a fabricated Herbert George Wells Fargo camber statement that indicated he had over $150 1000000 inwards his account, which he would utilize to make up them formerly the money had been freed up. In reality, the accounting held less than $6,500.
He and then tried to solicit further funds by apprisal some investors he required to pay off for his wife’s cancer treatment.
‘Emotional Havoc’
“Some victims became down(p) and suicidal, others lost their businesses, some were forced to sell their home homes and move into littler residences, some had to evidence their children they could no thirster compensate for their college education, and some suffered married problems and got divorced. Some victims had their retreat plans shattered,” prosecutors said.
“Simply put, no more words can explicate the layer of emotional and physical mayhem [Burnell] wreaked on [his] victims’ lives,” they added.
Burnell pleaded shamefaced to 11 counts of conducting wire dupery and ii counts of filing a sour revenue enhancement payoff inward May.