CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A Chicago investment manager has been sentenced to 17 years in federal prison for bilking clients and lenders out of more than $10 million over more than a decade.
Shawn Baldwin, 55, of Olympia Fields, was convicted in 2019 on charges of swindling cash from 15 individual investors and corporate lenders when he owned and controlled various investment firms in the city.
In 2006, Baldwin began exaggerating his financial successes and professional connections to obtain the money, federal prosecutors have said. He allegedly told victims that their cash would be placed in the stock market and used in other investment opportunities, but he was actually pocketing it for his own personal use.
Baldwin’s deceptive practices also included lying about working with compliance officers and professional advisers and “misrepresenting and minimizing the serious disciplinary actions taken against him by regulators,” prosecutors said. In reality, his certifications with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority had been revoked in 2009, and the state of Illinois permanently prohibited him from offering securities sales or investment advice in 2013.
Additionally, Baldwin concealed the fraud scheme by providing victims with bogus account statements and falsely claiming that he was developing lucrative business deals and new contracts that would garner profits from initial public stock offerings, prosecutors said. But Baldwin was actually unable to pay back his investors because he had already lost or spent their money.
The fraud scheme lasted until 2017, when Baldwin was arrested on federal wire fraud charges. He was convicted of seven of those counts.
Baldwin had been facing up to 140 years in prison, 20 years for each count.
U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey imposed the prison sentence Monday after a hearing in federal court in Chicago.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire & Chicago Sun-Times 2021. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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