A former instructor at the Purvis Real Estate Training Institute in Fort Worth, Texas, was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for running a Ponzi scheme that robbed investors of more than $1.2 million.
Bobby Duane Vise, 53, pleaded guilty to theft on Monday. In addition to the time in prison, he must also pay restitution of about $1.27 million to 12 victims.
Vise recruited the victims between August 2009 and October 2012, convincing them he'd had past success with real estate investments and promising to accomplish the same for them.
Instead, he invested the money for his own benefit and didn't buy any property, officials said.
"White-collar crimes strike at more than the victims' finances," Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson said in a written statement. "They're a traumatic breach of trust from which it can take years to recover, both financially and psychologically."
