David Downey of Indianapolis was sentenced to 72 months in prison for defrauding clients of his payroll company of more than 9.4 million dollars. From 2013 to 2017 Downey used 20 million dollars from his clients’ accounts to fund his Charles Schwab brokerage account, and ultimately returned only 11 million dollars to the IRS for employment taxes.
The government claims that Downey ran a Ponzi scheme with his clients’ money and funded vacations to destinations such as St. Barts with the stolen funds. Downey was arrested in California after he tried to get a passport in his brother’s name. At the time of his arrest he was in possession of $955,956 in cash.
