Lebanon business owner sentenced for Ponzi scheme

A Lebanon business owner was sentenced to prison yesterday for running a Ponzi scheme that stole hundreds of thousands from victim investors.

Terina Carney, aka Terina Humphrey, 50, received a sentence of three years in federal prison without parole and ordered to pay $396,246 in restitution and $118,241 in unpaid taxes to the IRS, according to a news release from the office of Tammy Dickinson, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Carney pleaded guilty in August to wire fraud, money laundering and failure to file a tax return.

During the extent of the scheme, she defrauded investors to the tune of $697,918. She repaid initial investors $326,328 with funds obtained from later victims, resulting in a total loss of $396,246, according to the release.

The owner of Riverside Lease LLC, Carney told investors their money would be used as an advance payment on behalf of a third-party company that would allow her business to continue operating while it waited to secure long-term bank funding. She promised a high-return rate ranging from 10 to 30 percent on top of the original investment. She also told investors their money was at little risk because the third-party business never had direct access to it.

In an investigation, agents found the investors’ money was never actually used as short-term financing for another business. Instead, Carney used it to pay back other investors or her own personal expenses, according to the release.

Carney, who never registered with Missouri as an investment adviser or broker, issued monthly statements to investors falsely claiming their money was being held in their individual accounts. In fact, the accounts were repeatedly emptied for other expenses, the investigation found.