A federal judge Thursday sentenced former Boulder private-fund manager and bank chairman Mark Yost to 6 1/2 years behind bars for defrauding investors and banks out of $10.8 million.
Yost, 47, pleaded guilty in February to four counts of making false statements to banks and one count each of wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.
His attorney, James Nesland, asked for a five-year sentence; Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas O’Rourke requested a seven-year term.
The father of three stood before a packed courtroom and told U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock that he tried desperately to stanch the losses his investment fund, Yost Partnership LC, began incurring six years ago and make back the money his investors were losing.
“Poor decisions, poor choices, not adhering to the rule to stop digging when you’re in deep, trying to make it right and breaking the law — none of this was right,” Yost said. “The hurt is deep, and the losses are staggering.”
Federal prosecutors claim that Yost, as part of a complex scheme, diverted about $1.8 million from the investment fund he managed for his own use and benefit. He then sent investors statements with false information that led them to believe their funds were intact.
Yost used his position as chairman of Boulder-based Flatirons Bank to forge signatures on promissory notes, loan agreements and bank forms to obtain lines of credit — worth more than $3.8 million — from Flatirons that actually ended up in an account he controlled.
He assumed the identity of two of his friends, forged their signatures on bank documents and told Flatirons to send statements to an address in Chicago, which turned out to be a mailbox at a UPS Store.
Yost has 60 days to turn himself in to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence. He also was ordered to pay his victims $10.8 million in restitution.
