South Bend lawyer to spend 10 years in prison, pay back $2 million in elder abuse scam
SOUTH BEND — Former South Bend attorney Sven Eric Marshall, who pleaded guilty to scamming elderly individuals as part of a Ponzi scheme, was sentenced to over 10 years in prison Tuesday and will be ordered to pay back nearly $2 million in restitution.
Marshall's sentencing marks the end of the federal case that saw the former attorney and certified public accountant plead guilty to bank fraud, mail fraud and securities fraud in 2019, but wait more than two years to be sentenced while prosecutors combed through boxes of previously undisclosed evidence.
Federal indictments and complaints in multiple civil cases accused Marshall, who invested money on behalf of his clients, of paying back investors with money from other clients in a Ponzi scheme setup. Marshall also embezzled close to $2 million as a part of the scheme and from clients who hired him to administer their wills, funneling money into his private or company accounts.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Jon DeGuilio sentenced Marshall to 121 months in prison and ordered he pay back almost $1.94 million in restitution. In addition to the restitution payments, Marshall will forfeit $1.75 million he made during the course of the dealings to the government.
Nowhere to be found
Marshall's investment fraud scheme began unraveling in 2017 when his law license was suspended after he didn't respond to a grievance made against him with the Indiana Supreme Court.
In late 2018, amid multiple lawsuits claiming he had embezzled money from multiple clients, Marshall abandoned his firm in South Bend — Trust & Investment Advisory Services of Indiana — and left town for South Carolina.
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In late 2018, prosecutors filed federal charges of bank and securities fraud against the former attorney and in early 2019, a judge ordered Marshall to pay $800,000 he stole from a client in a civil ruling.
Court documents in the criminal case state Marshall recruited investors and promised returns of 4% to 8% per year starting in 1998. He provided monthly statements to investors that showed the purported balances of their investments.
But by January 2016, the investment company’s account was nearly empty. When investors requested information about their money, Marshall misrepresented the balances on the investments, according to court documents.
Marshall also pleaded guilty to stealing money from the wills and estates of clients. In those cases, clients stipulated the money in the will was meant to go to local charities, but Marshall put the money in his personal accounts.
In July 2019, Marshall pleaded guilty to three counts in his criminal case and was set to be sentenced that fall. However, shortly before the sentencing date, prosecutors discovered hundreds of boxes of potential evidence in the case and requested time to go through it.
Since then, the case has been bogged down in procedural delays related to the boxes of evidence.
During that time, Marshall has also written a series of letters to reporters at the South Bend Tribune apologizing for the harm he caused to clients, while adding that media outlets have mischaracterized his case.
"I am very sorry for everything I have done to cause harm. I have let you all down," he wrote in one letter dated June 11, 2019.
In addition to the punishments handed down Tuesday in his criminal case, Marshall has been ordered to pay more more than $2.5 million to clients as the result of civil lawsuits.
Email Marek Mazurek at mmazurek@sbtinfo.com. Follow him on Twitter: @marek_mazurek
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Eric Marshall was sentenced to 10 years in prison, will pay $2 million
