Date: December 7, 2022 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Acting United States Attorney Steven Russell announced that Frederick Voight, of Richmond, Texas, was sentenced today in Lincoln, Nebraska, by United States District Judge John M. Gerrard for mail fraud. Voight was sentenced to 66 months in prison and will also serve 3 years on supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system. Voight was also ordered to pay restitution to the victims in the case in the amount of $40,903,052.09. Between September 2009 and October 4, 2018, Voight conducted business through various business entities, including F.A. Voight and Associates, LP, (FAVA), Voight Financial Services, Inc. and Daystar Funding, LP. Voight represented to investors that he would search for companies that had an "excellent and innovative product in a growing market" but were short of cash needed to take their product to market. Voight further represented that his business entities pooled investor funds and provided financing to companies in the form of secured loans with equity components in some transactions. Voight knowingly failed to disclose certain material facts to lenders and potential lenders in correspondence and other materials that he knew the lenders and potential lenders would rely on in deciding whether to loan their monies to business entities owned by and/or affiliated with Voight, and/or to renew or "rollover" existing loans instead of being repaid their principal. These omissions, combined with other statements made to the lenders and potential lenders, led some lenders and potential lenders to believe that the full amount of money they lent to Voight's entities would in turn be invested in specifically identified companies, referred to as "program companies." As Voight knew, most of the money received from the lenders was not in turn invested directly into the program companies. Instead, interest payments and principal repayments made by Voight to investors generally did not come from interest payments made by the program companies but instead was primarily derived from the proceeds of new loans from lenders. Voight failed to disclose to lenders the material fact that he was making interest payments to other lenders with funds acquired from new lenders and/or new loan monies from prior lenders into Voight's "Programs." By failing to provide them with information about the source of their interest and the use of their funds, Voight deprived lenders of materially valuable information needed to decide how to use their assets and monies. With respect to the count Voight pleaded guilty to, as part of the scheme, Voight knowingly caused items to be sent and placed in the U.S. Mail from victims in Holdrege, Nebraska, to the office of FAVA in Richmond, Texas on February 4, 2013. The items mailed included a check in the amount of $45,000 payable to FAVA, for the "RevH2O program". The items represented the proceeds of a loan made by the victims with the belief that the proceeds of their loan to Voight's company would in turn be used by Voight's company to provide funding to RevH2O. In truth and fact, as Voight well knew, the money provided by the victims did not go to RevH20 but was in fact used primarily to pay interest payments to other lenders without the knowledge or consent of the victims. The victims were never told by Voight how their money was actually used, depriving them of material information regarding the use of their investment. "Today's sentence of Frederick Voight shows the resolve and determination of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and our law enforcement partners to bring criminals to justice," said Ruth Mendonça, Postal Inspector in Charge of the Denver Division, which includes oversight of operations in Nebraska. "Mr. Voight's success with defrauding so many individuals emphasizes how important it is to exercise caution when investing, no matter how much trust you have in the individual or company you are investing with. Fortunately, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and our law enforcement partners will continue to be steadfast in identifying and investigating fraudulent investment schemes dependent on the U.S. Mail to defraud investors." During the course of Voight's scheme to defraud, the investors and related business entities lost approximately $40,903,052.09. This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, the United States Postal Service Office of Investigations, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
