by Mike Donoghue, Correspondent, Vermont Business Magazine A Florida man, who helped facilitate an $85 million investment fraud in the Northeast Kingdom, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Burlington to 18 months in prison on Wednesday.
The sentence for William Kelly, 73, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. for his part in the EB-5 scandal matched the prison term imposed last week on co-defendant William Stenger, 73, of Newport the former president of Jay Peak Resort.
Chief Federal Judge Geoffrey Crawford noted Kelly and the three co-defendants were part of a scam that provided nothing to investors for their $85 million.
“The project was fiction from beginning to end,” Crawford noted.
Kelly was a key adviser to the mastermind, co-defendant Ariel Quiros, 66, of Key Biscayne, Fla., the former owner of Jay Peak.
Crawford told Kelly, a law school graduate, that he would be under federal supervised release for three years after he is discharged from prison.
The judge also ordered Kelly, formerly of Weston, FL, to pay $8,338,661 in restitution.
“No comment. Just, I’m sorry,” Kelly said as he walked out of the courtroom with his wife, Kelly Kelly.
He will report June 21 to a federal prison camp in Miami.
Defense lawyer Robert Goldstein had proposed a 6-month prison sentence with 3 months being served in home detention. He called Kelly “an extraordinary human being.” Goldstein said the crime was unlike anything in his client’s life. He said Kelly had done…
