A federal judge sentenced a Shelton man Friday to three years behind bars for cheating investors out of $300,000, federal prosecutors said.
The man, John Goldsmith, 58, pleaded guilty in February to one count of securities fraud.
Prosecutors say that between 2005 and 2010, Goldsmith launched a scheme through which he solicited investments from several victims in several nonexistent companies.
In one instance, Goldsmith claimed that some of the investments were to be used to buy publicly traded stock at a discount. In another, prosecutors say Goldsmith claimed that invested funds were to be used for setting up a video-sharing website.
Goldsmith defrauded investors of about $300,000, prosecutors say, and converted a “significant portion” of the funds invested to his personal use. He also fabricated checks and bank records to cover his tracks, according to prosecutors.
In a press released issued Friday afternoon by U.S. Attorney David B. Fein’s office, one of Goldsmith’s victims was a close friend who depleted a home equity line of credit and liquidated stocks in order to invest more than $142,000 in the schemes.
In a letter to the court, the press release said, the victim’s wife wrote that Goldsmith “has destroyed our present lives – we are different people now. We don’t trust anyone. We don’t enjoy any activities we used to, can’t even afford an occasional movie! We are financially homebound. And he has destroyed our financial future.… Goldsmith first took our nest egg. Then he continued to encourage [the victim], his ‘best’ friend, to obtain more money from our home equity account, knowing all the while he was putting us in debt, and spending our money on his own living expenses and luxuries.”