Before fraudster gets 25 years for $179M scam, he went on luxury spending spree

For months, prosecutors say convicted fraudster Nikesh Patel spent like a man going to prison for a good long time.

He allegedly spent $6,000 a month to rent a home in a gated resort community. He crisscrossed the country in chartered jets, spending $19,000 on a flight to Chicago to ask a judge to put off his sentencing hearing, records show. The feds also say he dropped $30,000 on his daughter’s first birthday party and $28,368 on a ski trip. All after pleading guilty.

Problem was, he had promised to help pay back the victims of his $179 million fraud scheme. And apparently, he never actually expected to see prison. The FBI caught him in January trying to flee to Ecuador, where he said he had secured political asylum.

But Tuesday, it all caught up with Patel when U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras gave the 34-year-old Florida man a daunting 25-year prison sentence and ordered him to pay a stunning $174 million in restitution. The judge called Patel’s scheme the biggest fraud case he had seen in nearly 40 years on the bench — one that “most mere mortals wouldn’t even contemplate.”

Patel, already in custody and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, had no obvious reaction to the sentence. Earlier, he choked up as he spoke about losing time with his four young daughters. He apologized to his victims and the judge.

“It is going to be my actions that will show remorse,” Patel said.

The words may have rung pretty hollow thanks to Patel’s attempt to flee the United States. Even his own defense attorney, Andrew DeVooght, told the judge that Patel’s conduct was “hideous,” “inexcusable” and that “he deserves to be pounded on.”

“He’s lied to everybody in this room,” DeVooght said.

But DeVooght still urged Kocoras not to hand Patel the 30-year sentence sought by prosecutors. The judge obliged by knocking five years off the request.

Prosecutors say Patel executed a scheme “born of unbridled greed” that “delivered a crushing blow to investors who were unwitting pawns in his game.” Patel was the chief executive officer of First Farmers Financial LLC and pleaded guilty in December 2016 to five counts of wire fraud.

Patel’s company sold 26 sham loans to a Milwaukee investment firm for $179 million. It also sold three fabricated loans worth $20 million to an investment firm based in Tennessee. The feds say he also created phony business names and forged the signatures of government employees and purported borrowers. He even created fake documents, including a certified audit by a fictitious accountant.

Patel used the money he scammed out of investors to buy a Rolls Royce, a Lamborghini and a Lexus, prosecutors said. He bought homes worth millions of dollars, a boat and a share of a private jet. He even traveled to Panama with an accomplice, where they “blew off steam” and visited brothels.

As the walls began to close in, prosecutors said Patel actually began to learn from his mistakes and plotted schemes that were even more difficult to detect.

Among his latest scams, they said, is a $19 million fraud that involved him claiming to be a vice president of the Banco do Brasil.