(AP) -- A federal judge in Rochester is weighing punishment for an investment fund manager who helped run a $33 million Ponzi scheme that cheated more than two dozen investors across the country. John Montana could get up to 12 years in prison Friday for conspiracy, fraud and money laundering during the investment scam from July 1999 to July 2001.
The 57-year-old Staten Island man was convicted along with Gail Eldridge of Marietta, Ga., Paul Knight of Kodak, Tenn., and Mervyn Lyttle (LIE'-til) of Aurora, Ill. Eldridge drew a 20-year sentence, Knight got 14 years and Lyttle is awaiting sentencing. Two of the 27 victims lived in Germany and Costa Rica and the others in New York, Florida, Mississippi, Oregon, Michigan, Oklahoma, California and Washington state.
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