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United States v. Lewis Wallach

Lewis Wallach was charged by a criminal information filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on September 29, 2020. The information alleges that Wallach was the former CEO of a Marin-based company known as Professional Financial Investors, or PFI. Wallach is charged in the information with one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

According to the information, PFI was a real-estate firm that owned approximately 70 properties throughout Marin and Sonoma Counties. Wallach had significant responsibility for overseeing operations of PFI and related company Professional Investors Security Fund, or PISF, along with the founder of the firm, who died on May 6, 2020. The information alleges that PFI and PISF raised more than $350 million from investors since 2015. The information alleges that from at least 2015, Wallach and the founder knew that the revenues generated by PFI properties could not meet the obligations of PFI and PISF to pay interest and distributions, but that they hid the truth from investors. According to the information, Wallach and the founder continued to falsely reassure investors, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, that PFI had the financial reserves to survive.

The information also alleges that from 2015 to May 2020, Wallach diverted more than $26 million from PFI for his personal benefit, including personal investments in a land development project in Texas, an office space development project in California, and oil and gas exploration and development projects, as well as payment of his personal credit cards.

On December 16, 2020 Lewis Wallach entered a guilty plea to Counts 1 and 2 of the information.

On September 22, 2021 defendant Lewis Wallach was sentenced by the Honorable Maxine Chesney, U.S. District Judge, to 144 months of in prison.

Restitution Proceedings

A restitution hearing was held via Zoom on June 1, 2022. On June 6, 2022 the Court signed an Amended Judgment to include a restitution order of $109,953,495.90. While the Court has ordered restitution in this case, it does not guarantee payment by the defendant. In the event restitution payments are received from the defendant, the funds will be distributed by the Clerk of the United States District Court via U.S. Treasury check. They can be reached at (415) 522-2021.

Amended Judgement with Restitution

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Updated March 29, 2023