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Thread: Former OHL club owner ready to take his ‘lumps’ for Ponzi scheme
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[quote=MARRIE,463254]Millennium was promoting returns of up to 16 per cent per year, according to the indictment. Wise disputes this, saying it only offered a rate of return a few points above other banks. “Just enough to attract business,” he says. He also says it wasn’t until the stock market crashed in 2008 that the “illegal” decision was made to “borrow money” for the purpose of shoring up the bank as a “short-term solution.” Wise and the U.S. authorities do agree on at least one thing: Investor funds were being used to make “Ponzi” or interest payments to earlier CD purchasers. “This is the part that’s horrible,” Wise admits. “This is where people did lose their money, OK, and this was … it just never should have been.” At the time, did this wrongdoing create anxiety or guilt? Wise thinks for a moment. He struggles to explain he wasn’t the one doing the actual selling, but doesn’t want it to sound like he’s blaming others. “I wasn’t dealing day to day with the people,” he says. “You lose sight of reality and lose touch. It’s just the reality. I wasn’t hearing the voices.” He says he was clinging to hope “you’re going to pull it out of the fire,” while believing “you don’t think you’re going to get caught.” -- But he did get caught. After the SEC filed an emergency action to halt the scheme in March 2009, Wise fled to Canada. “When this stuff hits you don’t know what to do. You’re sitting there, everything’s done, everything’s gone.” He disputes any suggestion he had been in hiding. “I’ve been relatively visible,” he says, living in the Toronto area — he won’t say where — under his own name. Wise says he contacted U.S. authorities immediately after the warrant for his arrest was issued in February. On Monday, the man who once rode on private jets was seated in the economy section of an Air Canada flight, the price of his ticket cobbled together. “He is dependent on the kindness of his friends to assist him even to just surrender himself,” says Brown. [/quote]
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