Alderdice Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison for Fraud

One of the men who ran the failed International Gold Bullion Exchange was sentenced to six years in prison Monday on fraud charges and ordered to repay $2.3 million to the company’s customers.

James Alderdice, 28, pleaded guilty Feb. 7 to four counts of operating an organized scheme to defraud.

The $2.3 million in repayment ordered by Broward Circuit Court Judge Barry Stone represents the amount lost by 100 exchange customers listed in the four-count indictment.

Alderdice, 28, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday on additional fraud and larceny charges in New York and West Palm Beach, Fla.

Along with his late brother, William, Alderdice was accused of bilking customers around the country out of millions of dollars in a precious-metals scam.

Fort Lauderdale-based International Gold Bullion Exchange, which grew to a nationwide operation with offices in Los Angeles and Dallas, accepted as much as $200 million from investors from 1979 until 1983. Customers claim the company didn’t deliver all the gold it sold.

Estimates of the amount of fraud vary, but David Fishlow, a spokesman for New York Atty. Gen. Robert Abrams, said that about 25,000 people have filed $75 million in claims against the company.

The brothers spent 11 months in the Metropolitan Correctional Institution in Dade County during 1983 and 1984 while fighting extradition to New York. After they were freed on bail, the 40-year-old William was stabbed to death by a man he and his brother met in prison.

James Doyle, 43, was working as a chauffeur for the Alderdice brothers when he attacked them last July. He was convicted in November of killing William and assaulting James.