OAKLAND – LAWFUEL – The Legal Newswire – United States Attorney Scott N. Schools announced that Patrick Gregory Foster was sentenced today to seven years in prison for wire fraud. Foster was ordered to pay more than $16,000 in restitution to identified victims. The remaining money seized from Foster at the time of his arrest – close to $100,000 – was forfeited. This sentence is the result of an investigation by the United States Postal Inspection Service.
Mr. Foster, age 49, was indicted by a federal grand jury on May 18, 2006. He was charged with eleven counts of wire fraud. Mr. Foster pleaded guilty on May 4, 2007 to one count of wire fraud. According to the plea agreement, Mr. Foster admitted to participating in a scheme to defraud victims by falsely representing that he operated a business called “Group Partnerships 2000’s.” Mr. Foster falsely promised his victims profits of six, eight, or ten times their principal investment within a certain number of weeks. He admitted that he promised those rates of return and characterized that return as “profit” on an investment when he knew he could not get those rates of return. As part of the Ponzi scheme, Mr. Foster used old investors’ money to pay new investors. He did this both to lull original investors and to induce new investors. Mr. Foster admitted that there were more than 250 victims of his scheme and that the total amount of money lost by these individuals was more than $200,000.
The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge D. Lowell Jensen following a guilty plea on one count in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341. Judge Jensen also sentenced the defendant to a three year period of supervised release. The defendant has been in custody since October 15, 2005.
Keslie Stewart is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Margaret Glyer. The prosecution is the result of a three year investigation by the United States Postal Inspection Service.
Further Information:
Case #: CR 06-00363 DLJ
A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.
Electronic court filings and further procedural and docket information are available at https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
Judges’ calendars with schedules for upcoming court hearings can be viewed on the court’s website at www.cand.uscourts.gov.
All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be directed to Natalya LaBauve at (415) 436-7055 or by email at Natalya.LaBauve@usdoj.gov.
