Elderly clients convicted of kidnapping, beating adviser

Four German senior citizens were convicted and sentenced last week of kidnapping and beating their financial adviser. The four individuals, who range in age from 61 to 80, bound and gagged the adviser, James Amburn, broke two of his ribs, then tossed him in the trunk of a car for a 300-mile drive to a lakeside house. There, he was imprisoned in the basement. According to reports, Mr. Amburn says he was held in the cellar for four days, where he was chained, beaten and burned with cigarettes. According to a report from BBC News, the four abductors -- dubbed the 'Geritol Gang' by police -- were upset because the adviser lost $3.6 million of their money on investments in Kuwait and Florida real estate. They forced Mr. Amburn, 58, to sign papers stating he would get them their money back. The financial adviser, who was born in the U.S., attempted to escape at least one time -- but neighbors, thinking he was a burglar, contacted his captors. Eventually, the adviser convinced his clients to let him send a fax to a bank instructing managers there to withdraw money from his account. But Mr. Amburn was able to sneak a note into the fax alerting officials he was being held hostage. A SWAT team was alerted and eventually rescued the hostage. “I was beaten,” Mr. Amburn, said in published reports. “They threatened again and again to kill me.” The ringleader, 74-year-old Roland Kaspar, was sentenced to six years in prison. His accomplice, a 61-year-old businessman, will serve four years, and two women, one of them Kaspar's 80-year-old wife, received suspended sentences. A trial for a fifth suspect, aged 67, has been postponed due to health issues. (Jeff Benjamin contributed to this story)