Man sentenced to 10 years for using Costa Mesa company to bilk investors out of $9.4 million
A man convicted of using a Costa Mesa-based company to scam nearly 200 people out of more than $9 million was sentenced Friday to 10 years in federal prison, according to authorities.
Jerry Aubrey, 51, a former Santa Ana resident, pleaded guilty in January to one count of mail fraud in the massive scheme that bilked investors who thought they were putting money into developing oil and gas wells, the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles said in a statement.
As part of Aubrey’s sentence, U.S. District Judge James Selna ordered him to pay back the $9,408,184 in investors’ money he lost, according to authorities.
Aubrey’s company, Progressive Energy Partners, promised victims 50% annual returns on their investments, but instead, most of the cash coming in was spent on personal expenses, exorbitant commissions to salespeople and payments to earlier investors, which is the hallmark of a Ponzi scheme, according to federal prosecutors.
“As part of the scheme, PEP salespersons used purchased ‘lead lists’ to make cold calls to potential investors, who were told about the alleged profits they could earn from investing in PEP,” prosecutors said in a news release.
Victims were not told that, in reality, only 10% of their investments went toward developing gas and oil wells, according to court papers.
Aubrey was indicted in 2013 along with his brother Timothy Aubrey, 56, of Moreno Valley and Aaron Glasser, 33, of San Jacinto, prosecutors said.
Timothy Aubrey was a manager at PEP, prosecutors said. He is scheduled to face mail fraud and wire fraud charges at trial in October.
Glasser was a salesman who pleaded guilty in February to one count of mail fraud, prosecutors said. He is scheduled to be sentenced in December. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, according to authorities.
Jerry Aubrey ran Progressive Energy Partners from October 2005 to April 2010, when he began serving a five-year prison term in Florida for an earlier scam, prosecutors said.
Twitter: @jeremiahdobruck
