Legal News

Tom Petters Gets 50-Year Sentence

By Ashby Jones

It’s a glass-half-full/glass-half-empty deal for Tom Petters, the Minnesota businessman convicted last year of masterminding what prosecutors called a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme involving electronics, like DVD players and big-screen televisions.

Prosecutors had asked for a 335-year sentence, while Petters’s own lawyers had asked for a sentence of just over 4 years. On Thursday, Petters received a sentence closer to the four than the 335, but probably not close enough to make Petters all that happy. He got 50 years. (At the same time, we suppose there’s a chance Petters, 52, could see the other side of it.)

In issuing the sentence, U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle said he is “not satisfied that if he were released early, he wouldn’t re-offend.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 08, 2010 (boomark / email).