Brooklyn money manager gets 20 years for Ponzi scheme

Philip Barry, a money manager from Brooklyn, New York, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for running a $45 million Ponzi scheme that defrauded hundreds of investors over three decades. Barry, 53, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Dearie in Brooklyn. After a one-week trial in November, a jury convicted him on all the counts he faced -- one of securities fraud and 33 of mail fraud. “I hurt a lot of people,” Barry told Dearie before being sentenced. “I do not wish to hide how bad it was.” Barry, a resident of the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, began accepting money in 1978 from investors, guaranteeing fictional annual profits, according to prosecutors in the office of U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch. Instead, he used new investors' money to pay earlier ones, prosecutors said. His fraud is believed to be the longest-lasting Ponzi scheme in U.S. history, they said. In a separate action, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Barry diverted some of the investor money to a mail-order pornography business. In April, the SEC asked the court to dismiss a libel suit Barry brought over the accusation. --Bloomberg News--