March 11, 2010
ACCOUNTANT PLEADS GUILTY TO $13.5 MILLION PONZI SCHEME
SACRAMENTO, Calif.– United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced today that WILLIAM MURRAY, 55, of Sacramento, pleaded guilty and was immediately taken into custody today. The guilty plea was entered before United States District Judge Edward J. Garcia to mail fraud and interference with tax administration.
This case is the product of a joint investigation by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigations.
According to Assistant United States Attorney Matthew D. Segal, who prosecuted the case, between 2001 and 2009, MURRAY stole approximately $13,357,133 from over fifty clients. He told clients to write checks to accounts under his control so that he could pay taxes and/or invest money on their behalf. Actually, he spent millions of dollars in client money on his own lifestyle. He bought himself houses, a classic car, a fleet of limousines, jewelry, rugs, fine wines, and other luxury items. MURRAY changed his clients’ addresses to his own, so that they would not receive the IRS’s demands for payment on their delinquent taxes. As demands for payment arrived from clients and the IRS, MURRAY’s fraud became a Ponzi scheme: he used $3,507,502 in later clients’ money to pay off demands associated with earlier clients.
Prior to his arrest, MURRAY had been a person of some prominence. He was a certified public accountant with hundreds of clients. He regularly gave tax advice on a local television channel, and gave sworn expert witness testimony in courts in five counties. He had served as an IRS Revenue Agent between 1976 and 1980.
MURRAY’s plea agreement provides for the forfeiture of all of his remaining property, which is proceeds of his offense, restitution, the disclosure of his bank account information to his victims, and a full disclosure of all of his financial affairs.
MURRAY is scheduled to be sentenced by Honorable Edward J. Garcia on May 28, 2010, at 10:00 a.m. The maximum penalty he faces is twenty-three years imprisonment. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.
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