Local Man Sentenced to 17.5 Years in Federal Prison for Running Investment Fraud Scheme

DALLAS—Stanley Leitner was sentenced this afternoon by U.S. Senior District Judge A. Joe Fish to 210 months (17.5 years) in prison, announced U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper of the Northern District of Texas. A jury convicted the Argyle, Texas resident on all 27 counts of an indictment that charged him with various offenses related to an investment fraud scheme he ran. After pronouncing sentence, Judge Fish remanded Leitner, 70, to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.

Specifically, Leitner was convicted in January on six counts of wire fraud, one count of securities fraud, one count of failing to disclose compensation for promoting a security, 13 counts of money laundering, and six counts of engaging in illegal monetary transactions.

The government presented evidence at trial that from April 2004 to July 2005, Leitner was President and CEO of Megafund Corp., an entity he created to solicit investors to participate in a high yield investment program. Leitner raised funds from investors, which he aggregated, or “pooled,” and sent to another individual’s overseas bank account located in the Antilles. During the year or so Megafund was operating, Leitner raised more than $15 million from investors, many of whom were pastors, their friends, and their families.

Leitner was found guilty of devising and executing a scheme to defraud his investors by making representations about the trading program he knew were not true, and not telling them material information he knew to be true, which led the investors into believing that there was little or no risk of losing the invested funds. In addition, Leitner failed to inform investors that he was not transferring to the program some of the funds investors sent to him, but instead was using those monies to fund several personal ventures and projects, including, among other things, a movie.

U.S. Attorney Roper praised the investigative efforts of the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation and the FBI. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul Yanowitch and Chris Stokes.

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