Elk Grove Village CEO gets 9 years for taking investors for $9M

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The founder and CEO of an Elk Grove Village company has been sentenced to nine years in federal prison for defrauding investors out of more than $9 million toward bogus anti-terrorism technology.

Gregory Webb, 71, was sentenced Wednesday in Chicago by U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall.

Webb was convicted last year of nine counts of mail and wire fraud for bilking more than 200 investors, including Chicago firefighters and other first-responders, through InfrAegis Inc., according to the Justice Department.

Webb portrayed InfrAegis as a booming science venture on the verge of signing billion-dollar contracts with governments including the city of Chicago for kiosks that could recognize people on terrorism watch lists and detect biological, chemical and radiological threats on streets and in food and water supplies, federal prosecutors said.

But they said there were no contracts, and none of the company’s products had even been fully developed or tested.

Webb, who lived in Dallas when he was indicted in February 2014, previously lived in Arlington Heights. His company went under.

Between 2007 and 2012, more than $500,000 of the investments went into the pockets of Webb and his spouse, prosecutors said. He also racked up over $800,000 on corporate credit cards at restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations, tobacco stores, a movie theater, a sporting goods store and on an Apple iTunes account, as investors were left empty-handed.

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