Loma Linda Woman Sentenced to Over 5 Years in Prison for Commodities Scheme that Defrauded Victims Out of Over $2.6 Million

LOS ANGELES – A San Bernardino County woman was sentenced today to 63 months in federal prison for her involvement in an investment fraud scheme that caused more than $2.6 million in losses to more than two dozen victims.

Sharief Deona McDowell, 58, of Loma Linda, was sentenced by United States District Judge André Birotte Jr., who also ordered her to pay $2,446,093 in restitution.

McDowell pleaded guilty in December 2022 to one count of wire fraud.

From October 2018 to March 2022, McDowell defrauded at least 28 investors by falsely representing that she would invest their money in commodity futures and options contracts. As part of the scheme, McDowell started a purported investment company called Presidential Investments Inc. LLC. McDowell operated and controlled this company and directed others to open bank accounts in the name of Presidential Investments.

In fact, McDowell did not trade with the investors’ money and instead misappropriated the funds for her personal use. McDowell also provided investors with fabricated trade confirmations and account statements to falsely indicate that their investments were generating returns.

For example, from October 2020 to January 2021, McDowell caused one victim to wire $250,000 from the victim’s bank account to a McDowell-controlled account after McDowell led the victim to believe she would invest the victim’s money through Presidential Investments.

In addition, McDowell used money provided by new investors to repay earlier investors – a tactic often used to conceal and prolong Ponzi and other investment fraud schemes.

In total, McDowell admitted in her plea agreement to causing losses to victims of approximately $2,678,768. The victims included people inside the United States as well as in Canada and Poland.

McDowell committed this fraud in violation of a prior judicial order as the result of a 2011 lawsuit filed against her and 20/20 Trading Company, a precious metals trading business that employed her as a saleswoman, by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

“From the very formation of her company, Presidential Investments, [McDowell] intended to use it to commit fraud, after having been prohibited by a court order from doing precisely that,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “Aware of the injunction, [McDowell] took steps to conceal her conduct by registering the business and opening bank accounts in the names of other people.”

The FBI investigated this matter.

Assistant United States Attorney Cory L. Burleson of the Riverside Branch Office and Trial Attorney Lauren Archer of the Justice Department Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuted this case