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Some people lost their life savings while others lost their dreams in a $900 million fraud that was described as one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history and left behind 1 million victims.
Investors in 'Zeek' had taken out loans and mortgages on their homes expecting to get a 125% return on their investment. Victims included the parents of a leukemia patient who were trying to pay for their daughter’s hospital visits. And while some of the money was recovered, people in towns like Lexington, North Carolina, where ZeekRewards had its office, are still suffering. Zeek’s victims were working class people who didn’t understand what they were getting into.
ZTE CEO Paul Burks, who made millions from the scheme, was convicted of wire and mail fraud and sentenced to 14 years in prison in the first year of the Trump administration. Burks (pictured above) filed multiple appeals, claiming that the virus poses a risk to his health (he contracted a mild case) that were rejected by the court. And that was that, until Biden commuted his sentence.
The Quist CEO was one of a number of major fraudsters who were liberated by Biden in his rash of pardons and commutations. While Biden had long claimed that “no one is above the law”, beginning with his corrupt pardon of his son, the outgoing president has set out to demonstrate that the law is worthless for some of the worst convicted crooks in the country.
Biden commuted the sentence of James Fry, a hedge fund manager convicted in the Petters Group $1.9 billion Ponzi scheme described as “one of the largest and most complex Ponzi schemes in U.S. history” and was accused of having “raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors” while working alongside a convicted criminal. He also commuted the sentence of Timothy McGinn, one half of a pair of brokers accused of defrauding 900 investors of $136 million, who had been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Victims included a father of two wounded veterans who had been putting aside money for their expenses.
Former CEO Eric Bloom, who got 14 years in prison after being accused of committing the “biggest fraud in Chicago court history” in what was described as a $665 million fraud scheme, also got a pass from Biden. So did former CEO Gregory J. Podlucky, who ran a bottled water company and had been accused of a $685 million pyramid fraud loan scheme in which the money was spent on jewels and toy trains, and had been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Gregory McKnight, who ran a $72 million Ponzi scheme that targeted at least 3,000 investors in every state in the country, had been sentenced to 15 years in prison before Biden stepped in.
Marc Dreier, who had been sentenced to 20 years in prison for a $740 million Ponzi scheme with losses to investors estimated at $400 million, also got a helping hand from the White House.
Biden seemed to have a soft spot for Ponzi fraudsters, and his commutations included Nevin Shapiro, sentenced to 20 years in prison for a $930 million Ponzi scheme that made headlines because of its Miami connection; Brian Callahan, sentenced to 12 years in prison for a $96 million Ponzi scheme that caused some to lose their life savings; and Joseph Reshevsky, sentenced to 22 years in prison for a $255 million Ponzi scheme that defrauded 1,200 investors.
Other 'smaller time’ fraudsters freed by Biden included Gary McDuff, sentenced to 25 years, for an $11 million investment fraud scheme, Gordon Driver, sentenced to 12 years in prison for a $17 Ponzi scheme with around 150 victims, Christopher Swartz who had been sentenced to 12 years in prison after defrauding over 150 investors out of $21 million, and Andrew Mackey, sentenced to 27 years in prison for a $12 million Ponzi scheme with 150 victims.
Biden also intervened on behalf of Henry Ramer, sentenced to 13 years in prison for defrauding over 200 investors out of over $3 million, Rodney Phelps, who had been sentenced to 9 years in prison for defrauding victims out of $2.4 million in a Ponzi scheme, Leslie John Hamilton Jr who had been sentenced to 25 years in prison for ripping off over 400 investors of $14 million in a pyramid scheme, and James Turek, sentenced to 18 years in prison for defrauding 8,500 investors out of over 18 million.
Biden also extended his hand to fellow corrupt government officials including Rita Crundwell, the former comptroller of Dixon, Illinois, who had embezzled over $53 million to fund her horse breeding business in what was described as “the largest theft of public funds in state history”, Cuyahoga County county commissioner and county Democratic Party chairman Jimmy Dimora who had been sentenced to 28 years in prison, and Judge Michael Conahan, who became notorious as the ‘kids-for-cash’ judge for a scheme that involved sending kids to prison in exchange for kickbacks. The judge’s actions have been blamed for at least one suicide.
After giving his son a blanket pardon that would potentially cover legal issues emerging from his tax problems, Biden chose to also intervene on behalf of Paul Daugerdas: a lawyer who had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for manufacturing $7 billion fake tax deductions in what was described as “the biggest tax fraud prosecution ever.”
Health care fraud was also a popular theme in Biden’s commutations including James Burkhart, a former CEO of the American Senior Communities nursing home chain who “abused his official position of trust to steal tax payer dollars intended to benefit this community’s sick, elderly and mentally challenged”, Elaine Lovett, the owner of a medical billing company involved in a $26 Medicare fraud case, Millicent Traylor, accused of taking part in an $8.9 million Medicare fraud scheme and Babubhai Patel, who controlled 26 pharmacies in Detroit, and provided kickbacks to doctors to prescribe expensive drugs, and numerous other health care fraudsters as well.
As well as the more serious case of Dr. Meera Sachdeva, a former Mississippi oncologist who was accused of using expired and diluted chemotherapy medications and whose clinic reused needles, resulting in possible infections and deaths.
Considering the involvement of James Biden and Joe Biden’s own physician in the Americore scandal, that may be a prelude to pardons coming for Biden family members and associates.
While Biden is not the first president to pardon and commute sentences for fraudsters, both the dollar amounts and the number of victims in these cases are staggering. Due to complicated recovery processes it is difficult to estimate the total amount of losses for victims, but the total amount of money involved in these cases approaches $5 billion with over 1 million victims.
No president has ever left office bailing out individuals who did so much harm to so many.
Later investigations may determine whether, as with Bill Clinton’s Marc Rich pardon, there was a ‘pay-to-play’ element, but the sheer amount of wealth makes it unlikely that there wasn’t.
Bill Clinton’s legacy was forever scarred by the Marc Rich pardon. Biden’s legacy, already dripping with corruption, is now that of the most corrupt man to occupy the White House.
“No one is above the law,” Biden told us, before pardoning his son and executing a mass jailbreak of some of the worst financial scammers and fraudsters in the United States.
