Former Sacramento insurance agent convicted in Ponzi scheme now faces federal charges
A former Sacramento insurance agent convicted in a Ponzi scheme 10 years ago was indicted in federal court Thursday on charges of making banking transactions with money from a wire fraud scheme, prosecutors said.
A federal grand jury indicted William A. Sassman II, now residing in Orange County, on two counts of knowingly engaging in monetary transactions with criminally derived property, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento.
Sassman, 53, deposited checks totaling $325,000 into a bank account knowing that the money was derived from a crime, federal prosecutors said.
Mark Reichel, Sassman’s attorney, said the federal case stems from Sassman’s work for another person who sought investments from another state.
“Mr. Sassman himself is a victim of someone else who used him and his gullibility, and now he is left holding the bag,” Reichel told The Sacramento Bee on Thursday.
Sassman on Oct. 21, 2019, deposited a $125,000 check into the bank account, and then deposited a $200,000 check on Dec. 18, 2019, according to the indictment filed Thursday in U.S. District Court Eastern District of California.
The money originated from a wire fraud scheme, which is a specified unlawful activity under federal money laundering statutes, federal prosecutors said in the news release.
A Sacramento Superior Court judge in January 2011 sentenced Sassman to 18 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to 13 felony counts of grand theft in the Ponzi scheme. The judge also also ordered him to repay nearly $4.5 million to 48 victims, many of whom lost their life savings.
But those victims would likely never see their money returned, because the money taken in the Ponzi scheme had all been spent, Senior Assistant Attorney General Ronald D. Smetana told the victims shortly before Sassman’s sentencing.
California Department of Justice officials have said that Sassman used investors’ money to charge more than $1 million on his American Express cards, buy $300,000 worth of automobiles, including two Ferraris, and spend more than $121,000 on Polo Ralph Lauren merchandise.
Sassman later was among those who challenged an early release program for nonviolent female inmates with 24 months or less left to serve in California’s prisons. A Sacramento federal judge in September 2015 ruled that the program, designed to reunite women with their children and family, must be expanded to include male inmates.
This federal case against Sassman is the result of an FBI investigation.
If convicted, Sassman could face a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 or up to twice the amount of the laundered money, the prosecutors said.
