A former Boston financial adviser and radio host received a seven-year prison sentence 6/15 for defrauding clients of at least $3.2 million through a Ponzi scheme. Gregg Rennie, 44, also faces three years of supervised release and must pay $3.78 million in restitution to his victims, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston said.
Rennie was convicted in federal court in January. The former host of the “Your Money” radio talk show on WBIX-AM Boston pleaded guilty to 13 counts of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud.
Rennie offered clients a guaranteed return rate for their investments in “risk-free” federal housing certificates and annuities. But instead of investing the money, he used it to cover his own expenses.
His victims also included a Providence congregation that had raised funds to build a new church and listeners of his radio show.
“I am completely entrenched in my guilt and shame, and have crawled in the ashes for a long time over this whole mess,” Rennie said in a letter to his victims, made public in a court filing, reported the Boston Herald.
Rennie attributed his fraud to a family friend who reappeared in his life after Rennie’s brother died in a 2004 car accident.
“This friend came to me with many ideas on how to invest in real estate projects that would help bear the costs of raising my family, and unfortunately it was a scam on me, and I bit on it,” his letter stated.
Rennie asked to be sentenced to a residential detention facility, home confinement, probation and supervised release, saying he wanted to support his wife and three children and repay victims.
He had been working at Stonemakers, a landscape design and construction company in Manchester, N.H., where he had the ability to earn $250,000 a year and pay 35 percent toward restitution, according to the story.
