Miami-Dade company founder to pay $4.7 million restitution
March 18, 2003
The Associated Press
A financial company founder who bilked mostly elderly members of his church by offering "safe" investments while running an old-style fraud has been ordered to pay $4.7 million in restitution to nearly 50 of his victims.
Raymond L. Knowles, formerly of Opa-locka and Pembroke Pines, was sentenced in January to four years and nine months in federal prison.
He had been arrested in San Antonio in April, then convicted of 16 counts of mail fraud, four counts of wire fraud and four counts of securities fraud in November.
Knowles' Miami-Dade County-based company, All Diversified Financial Services Inc., targeted mostly elderly members of his Jehovah's Witness church and people Knowles met through them. Knowles was a church elder.
His company promised clients monthly returns of 8.5 percent to 9.25 percent when market rates were lower and the business was losing money.
The charges covered promissory notes issued by All Diversified from 1997 to 2000. The company was dissolved as a corporation by Florida regulators in October 1998.
Through All Diversified, Knowles actually ran a Ponzi scheme, in which old investors are paid using money from new investors. Knowles used some of the money to pay for leases on vehicles for himself and his wife, and to pay his business, personal and other expenses.
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Information from: South Florida Sun-Sentinel,