Financial adviser given 5 years in prison as victims recall betrayal: ‘I don’t know what’s happened to our world.’
The financial adviser used by the
But it was all a fraud. In the span of a few years, the trusted adviser,
"He took just about everything I had," the 92-year-old Bode, who is partially deaf and blind, said from a wheelchair Monday in federal court. "All of a sudden I'm down to almost poverty level. ... I don't even have money to hire people to come into my house and help me. I'm in bad shape."
After listening to wrenching testimony from more than a half-dozen of Booy's victims, U.S. District Judge
"The fact that it went on for four years, stealing money from elderly people who could not afford to lose (it), that's extremely serious," Feinerman said at the end of the emotional three-hour hearing.
Booy, 50, pleaded guilty last year to mail fraud, admitting to bilking two dozen victims out of a total of more than
Prosecutors said Booy, who called his company
To bolster confidence with his victims, Booy falsely claimed to be affiliated with a well-known investment firm, creating phony receipts with the company's logo.
Instead of investing the funds as promised, Booy used the money to cover personal expenses -- including credit card debt and purchases at Best Buy and DirecTV -- and to pay earlier investors through Ponzi-type payments, according to prosecutors.
Booy's attorney,
"If he goes to jail now, those two jobs will be gone," Sanan said.
Assistant
Before he was sentenced, Booy, dressed in a dark suit and gray tie, apologized to the victims, saying that he was battling depression at the time he committed the fraud and that something "wasn't right in my head."
"It somehow didn't register even though I knew it was wrong," he said. "I will regret it no matter how long I live."
According to prosecutors, Booy's victims included a
Many of the victims who spoke in court wondered aloud how Booy could sleep at night. Others turned directly to him as they spoke. One woman paused while recounting the false promises made by Booy to her, looking at him as he sat at the defense table with his eyes downcast.
"Is that right,
Bode, who read from a victim-impact statement printed in large type so she could see, said Booy convinced her to close several of the couple's accounts in order to cut him checks that he promised to put into higher-yielding investments.
"I'm just beside myself," she said. "I don't know what's happened to our world. It used to be you could trust everybody and do things with a handshake."
One woman,
"My mom was so proud of herself for finding him," McDonald said, her voice shaking with emotion. "She trusted him, and we trusted her."
After her mother had a series of medical setbacks and was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, McDonald said, her children sought to liquidate some of her holdings to pay for the care she needed. They grew suspicious when Booy put them off, but it was too late. When he was arrested, they learned that most of the
Now McDonald said the only silver lining is that her mother's dementia has kept her from the awful truth.
"She doesn't remember him, and she doesn't know he stole her money," McDonald said.
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