Kentucky-based scams that cost victims $2.4 million bring 53-month sentence
A man who took part in fleecing people of more than $2 million through fraudulent investment schemes has been sentenced to four years and five months in federal prison.
Jason T. Castenir also is liable for restitution of $2.4 million in the case along with Rodney Scott Phelps, who was sentenced to nine years in prison in July.
Castenir pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, commodities fraud and money laundering. He lived in Kentucky but later moved to Florida, court documents indicate.
Phelps and Castenir set up a company in Somerset in 2012 called Maverick Asset Management. They solicited investments in various ventures, including an oil and gas deal in Belize and a casino in Mississippi, according to court records.
The two claimed experience in trading commodities and promised big returns at little risk, but in fact misappropriated money, lost significant amounts in trading, and created false documents to entice and reassure investors, Castenir acknowledged in his plea agreement.
In one scheme, for instance, three victims gave Phelps and Castenir a total of more than $1 million to invest and the two repaid them only a little over $33,000, according to the court record.
Of the $400,000 Castenir and Phelps put into one commodities futures fund, they lost $303,000 through unprofitable trades and commission charges in just five months, according to the court record.
“None of us will ever know the full devastation caused by the deceit and larceny of Jason Castenir,” Sherry George, a Tennessee woman whose alleged losses were not included in the Kentucky charges against Castenir, said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom.
The restitution order against Castenir lists more than a dozen victims from California to Florida.
Boom’s order sentencing Castenir was posted Tuesday. He must report to prison Jan. 1 and serve at least 85 percent of the sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kenneth Taylor and Kathryn Anderson prosecuted the case.
