GREENVILLE, SC – Claus C. Foerster, 56, will server 24 months for multiple counts of Wire Fraud, totally more than 3 million dollars, according to the US Attorney’s Office.
He will also have to pay $3,543,829.48 in restitution to the victims and be on supervised release for 3 years.
Assistant US Attorney David C. Stephens said,
From 1997 through 2014 Mr. Foerster was a financial advisor employed by national investment counseling firms.
In approximately 2000 Mr. Foerster began stealing from his clients.
He advised the clients that he had located better investments than their current portfolio.
He would then tell them that to get into these investments they had to withdraw their funds from Foerster’s employers’ accounts and transfer them to Foerster’s account for further investment.
Once the funds were in Mr. Foerster’s account he diverted them to his own use.
By creating bogus account statements and on occasion returning some funds to the clients as “profits” he was able to keep the scheme going for over a decade.
