Ponzi Schemer Pays With 6-Year Prison Term, $20M Restitution

The so-called president and CEO of NL Technology learned his fate on Friday after bilking his victims out of more than $20 million, officials said.

Jonny Ngo admitted in a plea agreement that he mocked up invoices for purchases from wholesale companies, used false financial statements to make it appear the NL Technology had earned income of nearly $28 million in 2015-16 and other schemes to represent the company's business dealings. He also admitted telling victims he was rolling over their investments into subsequent deals. The reality, though, was there were no deals to roll anywhere.

Ngo also used the falsified documents to persuade his victims that the "company" was going to buy smartphone screens and supply them to fictional buyers, and that the quality of the screens was guaranteed by a third-party escrow company, according to a news release sent out Friday by the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of California.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey T. Miller sentenced Ngo to more than six years in prison for operating the $65 million Ponzi scheme, prosecutors said. he was also ordered to pay $20,292,490.60 to his victims.

Ngo's crimes were “no mere mistake," Miller said in court, according to the news release. "This was calculated, broad in nature, deep in planning and deadly in execution,” adding that Ngo's victims “suffered a substantial loss and have had financial ruin, dreams dashed, fruits of a lifetime of labor dissipated, emotional distress, shame, shock, embarrassment, and emotional damage to last a lifetime."

Also in his plea deal, Ngo told the court he gambled away some of his victims' money and had used funds to buy luxury cars and a home.

In a news release about Ngo's sentencing, FBI Special Agent in Charge Suzanne Turner said, “Ngo swindled and conned innocent investors out of their hard-earned money to support his lavish lifestyle."