By the Department of Justice
A Santa Barbara man was sentenced today to 133 months in federal prison for stealing approximately $14 million from victims who thought their investments would be used to purchase annuities issued by Swiss insurance companies and for failing to pay over $3 million in federal income tax.
Darrell Arnold Aviss, 64, was sentenced by United States District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr., who also ordered him to pay $ 14,486,169 in restitution and to forfeit his interest in a Santa Barbara home worth approximately $4 million.
At today’s court hearing, Judge Blumenfeld, who remanded Aviss into federal custody, described Aviss as “cruel, callous and self-absorbed” and adding, “the devastation in this case is real.”
On June 28, Aviss pleaded guilty to 21 felonies: five counts of wire fraud, one count of money laundering, five counts of engaging in monetary transactions in criminally derived property over $10,000, three counts of tax evasion, six counts of willful failure to report foreign bank and financial accounts, and one count of aggravated identity theft.
Aviss ran his Ponzi scheme from at least 2012 through the summer of 2020, soliciting money from people who wanted to purchase annuities from insurance companies based in Switzerland. Aviss claimed the Swiss annuities he offered were safe and secure, and, in some instances, he told victims the annuities would pay interest rates ranging from 5% to 7%.
But Aviss did not use the victims’…
