The wives of Ponzi schemers aren’t always innocent

Reporting from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. — 

Once, they could be found on the arms of their charming, wealthy husbands, leading lives of privilege and glamour. Now those days are gone, replaced by lawyers’ questions and the scorn of former friends.

Call them “The Real Housewives of South Florida Ponzi Schemers.” Among them is Victoria Meisner, whose husband, Michael, masterminded a $37-million plot that defrauded more than 260 investors.

Her story, however, is different from most of the other wives: Like her husband, she’s now a convicted felon.

Victoria Meisner, 53, pleaded guilty in November to filing a false tax return, reporting $49,626 of total income in 2003. That year, she helped rack up more than $430,000 in personal expenses on a debit card belonging to her husband’s business, Phoenix Diversified Investment Corp.

She was sentenced Friday to 18 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $345,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. She is to report to prison within weeks.

Victoria Meisner’s case highlights one of the inevitable questions for authorities investigating Ponzi schemes: Should family members whose luxurious lifestyles were funded by dirty money face criminal charges?

John Gillies, head of South Florida’s FBI office, has called the Meisner case “a cautionary tale to spouses that they cannot claim ignorance about their financial situation when they know better.”

Defense lawyers who specialize in white-collar crime agree that just because a spouse or family member isn’t actively involved in a fraud, it doesn’t mean he or she is safe from prosecution.

“Willful blindness in the criminal system is tantamount to actual knowledge if there are sufficient red flags to alert an individual that criminal activity is afoot,” said Sharon Kegerreis, a Miami attorney and former federal prosecutor.

Among those warning signals: a sudden, unexplained influx of wealth into the household or curious patterns of moving money between bank accounts.

Some frauds made headlines in South Florida, including disgraced Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein’s $1.2-billion Ponzi scheme and Weston, Fla., resident Sean Healy’s $20-million fraud.

In both cases, the defendants’ wives -- Kimberly Rothstein and Shalese Healy -- said they knew nothing about their husbands’ acts and believed the money came from legitimate businesses. Neither wife has been charged.

And Ruth Madoff, wife of the country’s most famous Ponzi schemer, apparently will not be charged in husband Bernard’s $65-billion Ponzi scheme.

But Victoria Meisner’s signature ensnared her. She admitted signing off on false income tax returns for 2003 and 2004, court records show.

“I knew that my family and I maintained a lavish lifestyle well in excess of the ‘total income’ reported,” she acknowledged in a sworn statement in November.

Michael Meisner told prospective investors that the company, formed in 2001, had a sophisticated trading system that consistently resulted in big profits. For a while, the Meisners and their three children led an extravagant existence complete with eight high-end properties in Palm Beach County, a fleet of luxury cars and access to country clubs, court documents show.

The business collapsed in April 2008. A month later, the Meisners’ only daughter married at Donald Trump’s ritzy Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach. Two days later, Michael Meisner filed for personal bankruptcy.

He pleaded guilty in September to mail fraud, loan application fraud and tax evasion. Scheduled to be sentenced March 19, he faces up to 30 years in federal prison.

Michael Meisner has said that his wife signed what he handed her, trusting him without question.

“Unfortunately, though inadvertent, I betrayed my wife’s love and trust by keeping her in the dark,” he wrote to her sentencing judge.

At Victoria Meisner’s sentencing, she implored U.S. District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp to give her probation.

“Please don’t take me away from my children and family,” she said as her adult daughter wept softly. “My children already have lost their father.”

Her attorney, assistant federal public defender Robert Adler, said Victoria Meisner had lost everything financially and was working two jobs.

“Victoria Meisner never intended to be a tax cheat,” he said. “She was a housewife.”

jburstein@

sunsentinel.com