DENVER, April 30 (UPI) -- A 72-year-old man has been sentenced to 330 years in a U.S. prison for fleecing investors of millions of dollars.
Norman Schmidt was also ordered to make restitution of $38.4 million, The Denver Post reported.
A jury in Denver found Schmidt guilty last year of fraud and money laundering. Investigators said that he took in hundreds of millions of dollars by promising rates of return as high as 400 percent a month, using a variety of corporate names and providing them with false statements that showed healthy profits.
Schmidt's wife, Jannice, has been sentenced to nine years in prison and a number of other confederates are awaiting sentencing.
Thomas Hammond, Schmidt's lawyer, argued that the 330-year sentence was out of proportion to those given other white-collar criminals, including those given corporate executives, the Post said.
"A sentence that is (14) times the sentence of defendants who caused vastly greater losses to investors is nothing short of outrageous," Hammond wrote. "It is unreasonable to expect that Mr. Schmidt will live to 100. A sentence beyond that is both unreasonable and impossible, and threatens to make a mockery of the federal sentencing process."
