Former Investment Advisor To Serve 12 ½ Years In Prison For $16 Million Mail Fraud, Money Laundering Scheme

Peoria, Ill. – A former Urbana, Ill., investment advisor, Timothy J. Roth, 57, currently of Stonington, Ill., was sentenced this afternoon in federal court in Peoria, to serve 151 months (12 years, 7 months) in prison and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $16,151,964 to victims of his fraud scheme. Senior U.S. District Judge Michael M. Mihm ordered that Roth report on Apr. 2, 2013, to the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his prison term. Following completion of his prison sentence, Roth was ordered to remain on supervised release for a period of three years.

On Oct. 25, 2011, Roth waived indictment and entered guilty pleas to one count each of mail fraud and money laundering. Roth admitted that from May 2004 through March 2011, he defrauded eleven victims, including companies and individual victims, of approximately $16 million.

According to court documents and statements, Roth admitted that he fraudulently transferred, liquidated and removed mutual fund shares from clients’ accounts for his own personal and business use. Since June 2002, Roth had worked as a federally registered investment advisor for a capital management company in Champaign, Ill., and had also formed and operated several personal consulting companies. These companies provided software and tracking and management programs to various outside third party administrators for mutual fund option plans.

The investigation was conducted by the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigations Division; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; the Securities Department of the Illinois Secretary of State; and the Champaign Police Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David H. Hoff and Eric I. Long.