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Press Release

Indiana Woman Sentenced to Federal Prison for $3.5 Million Fraud

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Middle District of Florida

Orlando, Florida – Chief U.S. District Judge Anne C. Conway today sentenced Linda Deavers (61, Indiana) to six years and six months in federal prison for wire fraud and money laundering. The Court also ordered Deavers to serve a three-year term of supervised release, and to pay more than $3.5 million in restitution.  A federal jury found her guilty on July 11, 2014.

According to evidence presented at trial, Deavers devised an investment fraud scheme that used an entity by the name of Angel Annie Humanitarian Trust, LLC. As part of her pitch to investors, Deavers represented that the Trust was a Section 501(c)(3) charitable organization and that she had connections to trading programs in Europe.  She said that the investments would generate large rates of return, that she had been successful in investing in such trading programs previously, and that any money invested with her and the Trust would be invested in such trading programs overseas. None of those representations were true. Deavers collected more than $5.2 million from Florida investors. After returning approximately $1.8 million to investors, she used most of the remaining $3.4 million to fund her lavish lifestyle in Indiana and Europe, and to pay various expenses for herself and her family, including a $1 million deposit on a mansion. To lull her investors into a false sense of security, Deavers used e-mail and Skype to provide her investors with a series of false excuses as to why she had not been able to successfully invest their money. Even after spending the last of the funds from her victims, Deavers continued to falsely claim, for several years, that she was working on investments for them.

This type of scheme is sometimes referred to as a prime bank investment fraud scheme. For more information on this type of scheme, please visit the website for the United States Department of the Treasury, Office of Inspector General.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg.

Updated February 5, 2015