FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Some of the flashier spoils of disbarred lawyer Scott Rothstein’s massive Ponzi scheme were auctioned Thursday for $5.8 million, with the money earmarked by the government to repay investors for some of their losses.
The items sold included an 87-foot Warren yacht that went for $2.5 million, several smaller boats and 11 vehicles, including a Bugatti, a Rolls Royce, two Ferraris and a Bentley. They were seized by the Treasury Department just as Rothstein’s scam was falling apart last fall.
Rothstein is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to five felony charges. Prosecutors say he orchestrated a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme by promising people fat profits through investments in supposedly confidential legal settlements that were fictional.
Rothstein’s law firm imploded shortly after his Ponzi scheme collapsed last fall. The charges he pleaded guilty to carry maximum prison sentences totaling 100 years, but the 47-year-old Rothstein could get a lighter term because he went undercover to help the FBI arrest a suspected Mafia figure with ties to New York and Sicilian crime families.
The Associated Press
