Crooked lawyer goes to slammer: Promises of top interest rates fed the greed of private investors

BALTIMORE, MD—The old saying of ‘if it’s too good to be true, it usually isn’t’ didn’t mean much to a group of investors who shoveled their money into the pockets of a group of con-men all for the promise of ultra-high returns on their “investment”.

Now the final sentencing is in the works with one Maryland lawyer being send to the slammer for a mere three years.

Maryland’s Own Maddoff: Patrick J. Belzner aka Patrick McCloskey pleads guilty massive investor fraud

Instead, Belzner admitted that he directed McCloskey to remove the investors’ funds soon after they had been deposited into the escrow account. Belzner and McCloskey then used the stolen funds to pay for their personal and business expenses, as well as to make partial repayments to earlier lenders, to pay fees to some of the victim investors to keep them from demanding the return of their money, and to pay the loan broker for its supposed work and expenses in attempting to locate financing sources.