Seattle – A former Bellevue, Washington, resident who relocated to Miami, was convicted today in U.S. District Court in Seattle of 26 counts related to his multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, announced U.S. Attorney Nick Brown. The jury deliberated about 11 hours before returning the verdicts following a nine-day trial. Volodimyr Pigida, 48, and his wife Marina Bondarenko, 39, operated a ‘work-at-home’ email scheme that ultimately crashed – but not before the two raided the company’s accounts to purchase homes, expensive cars, and a yacht. The two set up a series of trusts to try to hide the diverted assets from the bankruptcy trustee after the company declared bankruptcy.
According to records filed in the case and testimony at trial, the company Pigida and his spouse formed, Trend Sound Promoter AMG Corp., was supposed to conduct advertising and music promotion over the internet. The couple sold ad-promoting packages whereby those who bought a package were to be paid for email marketing. The couple made claims to those purchasing the packages that they could make big money for sending emails on Trend Sound’s behalf. In reality, the only significant money being generated was from those purchasing the packages, and it was used to pay earlier purchasers as in a typical Ponzi scheme. Over time the company brought in over $22 million, and total losses to those purchasing the packages was over $11 million. As purchasers got wise and the money started to run out,…
