Spartanburg Man Guilty in Three Million Dollar Wire Fraud

Contact Person: David Stephens (864) 282-2100

Greenville, South Carolina ---- United States Attorney Bill Nettles announced today that Claus C. Foerster, age 55, formerly of Spartanburg, South Carolina, entered a plea of guilty as charged today to multiple counts of Wire Fraud in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343.  United States District Court Judge Bruce H. Hendricks, sitting in Greenville, accepted the plea of guilty.  Judge Hendricks will sentence Foerster after the preparation of a Presentence Report. On each of the five counts of the Indictment, Foerster faces a possible sentence of up to twenty years in prison and a fine of $250,000.00.

At the guilty plea hearing Assistant United States Attorney David C. Stephens advised the court of the following: 1997 through 2014 Mr. Foerster was a financial advisor employed by national investment counseling firms.  In approximately 2000 Mr. Foerster began stealing from his clients.  He would advise the clients that he had located better investments than their current portfolio.  He would then tell them that to get in to these investments they would have to withdraw their funds from his employers’ accounts and transfer them to his account for further investment.  Once the funds were in Mr. Foerster’s account he would simply divert them to his own use.  By creating bogus account statements and on occasion returning some funds to the clients as “profits” he was able to keep the scheme going for over a decade.  By his use of this scam Foerster cheated his clients out of more than three million dollars ($3,000,000.00).

The United States Secret Service investigated the case.  Mr. Nettles commended them and AUSA Stephens for their diligence in this investigation and prosecution.

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