Former Trust Executive Sentenced to 33 Months
Robert Todd Calvert Defrauded 15 Oregon Investors in a Bogus Trust Scheme
| U.S. Attorney’s Office August 17, 2011 |
PORTLAND, OR—Robert Todd Calvert, 47, of Henderson, Nevada, was sentenced on August 16, 2011, by U. S. District Judge Robert E. Jones to 33 months in prison for a fraud scheme that caused 15 Oregonians to lose $550,177. Several of the victims were elderly and had invested money that they were saving in IRAs for their retirement.
The court also ordered a three-year term of supervised release, and ordered Calvert to pay full restitution to the victims. Calvert will also be subject to a cease and desist order with the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities, restricting his ability to solicit investments or sell securities in the State of Oregon again.
Calvert was a trust executive with the Trust Company of the Pacific in Nevada, which functioned as an individual retirement account (IRA) custodian. From 2004-2007, he and others convinced a number of Oregonians to invest their IRAs, trusts and annuities with the defendant’s company based on false promises that they would recover their principal investment and a guaranteed 8 percent return on their investment at the end of a maturation period. Calvert knew the promises were false, and that he did not have the means to pay investors back. Calvert told some investors that their investment would be used to finance the purchase of under-valued, high-end real estate in Nevada that would be “flipped” and resold for a profit, but the real estate transactions were fictitious and never happened. As a result of the fraud, the victims lost almost all of their money.
“Prosecuting those who defraud investors is a top priority of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon and the U.S. Department of Justice,” U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton stated. “Victims believed the guarantees of return promised by the defendant, and now they face a future of hardship because of these lies.”
The case has been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Salem, Oregon and the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities. Assistant U.S. Attorney Hannah Horsley prosecuted the case.