A California man has been found guilty of running a sophisticated diamond investment fraud scheme. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, 73-year-old Murray Todd Petersen of Fair Oaks was convicted last Tuesday, January 14 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Petersen, a salesman for Petersen & Lowe LLC, deceived investors from March 2013 through August 2019 to acquire fancy-colored diamonds using materially false representations. In an attempt to further encourage his investors to invest quickly, he promised them enhanced security, overvalued investment appraisals, and inflated rates of return. These promises, however, were part of an elaborate con to conceal his Ponzi scheme.
According to the details provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office, Petersen's victims were persuaded to place their investments in a so-called China investment program offering a false "guaranteed" five to eight percent monthly dividend return. Investors were eventually left with missing returns and highly inaccurate diamond appraisals when they tried to liquidate their assets.
The scheme ran into further criminality when Petersen began to outright steal from his clients, taking prepayments for diamonds that were never delivered. Throughout his fraudulent operations, Petersen took roughly $850,000 in sales commissions. He used the ill-gotten funds to settle his high IRS tax liens and to cover his business operating expenses. The conviction resulted in Petersen being taken into custody, with a sentencing hearing set for April 24.
Petersen faces up to 20 years in prison on each count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud. His co-conspirators, Adam Jonathan Lowe and Scott Schafer, were previously convicted on related charges. The FBI Miami Field Office, with Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey B. Veltri leading the investigation, announced the conviction. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Marc Anton, Latoya Brown, and Marx Calderon are credited with prosecuting the case and handling asset forfeiture, respectively.
The Southern District of Florida's U.S. Attorney's Office encourages the public to access the press release and related court documents on their official website or the District Court's website, with case number 23-cr-60225 for further information.
