Lancaster Stockbroker Gets 2-Year Prison Term in $1-Million Bilking Scheme

A Lancaster stockbroker who pleaded guilty to bilking his clients out of more than $1 million has been sentenced to nearly two years in federal prison.

Ronnie Raymond Lapora, 40, also was ordered by U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall in Los Angeles to pay more than $60,000 in restitution.

Lapora, who worked for the A.L. Williams Corp., a securities brokerage firm and subsidiary of First American National Securities, pleaded guilty Nov. 2 to four counts of mail fraud in connection with the sale of bogus investments.

At sentencing Monday, Lapora was ordered to begin serving his 21-month term Feb. 25.

Lapora was originally charged with 14 counts of mail fraud, and faced a maximum sentence of 70 years in prison and a $3.5-million fine, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Paula Mabrey.

Mabrey said that Lapora admitted hawking a fictitious mutual fund, “Common Sense Trust-15,” to more than 80 investors between 1987 and August, 1989. He had provided investors with a prospectus that described a legitimate mutual fund sold by the company called “Common Sense Trust Fund.”

He told the investors that the two funds were identical and that the money they invested in the bogus fund would earn them at least 15% and was insured by the U.S. government, Mabrey said.

Lapora took more than $1 million from those 80 clients, Mabrey said, including more than $130,000 from a single investor.

Lapora used the investment money to buy land in Nevada and Lancaster and to pay various personal expenses, according to court documents.

Mabrey said that all of the victims have been or will be partially reimbursed for their losses by Lapora or the securities firm.