The Department of Justice recently announced a six-year prison sentence for two individauls involved in a cattle-trading Ponzi scheme that resulted in millions of dollars in victim losses.

According to court documents, from late 2017 until early 2019, Reva Joyce Stachniw, 71, of Galesburg, Illinois, and Ron Throgmartin, 59, of Buford, Georgia, along with a co-conspirator, ran a Ponzi scheme by fraudulently representing to victims that their investments were backed by short-term investments in Stachniw and Throgmartin’s cattle and marijuana businesses. The victim-investors gave the conspirators money based on false promises that their investments would be used for legitimate activities related to those businesses. In actuality, the funds were used to pay earlier investors.

In August 2022, Stachniw and Throgmartin were convicted at trial of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, five counts of wire fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

In addition to their terms of imprisonment, Stachniw was ordered to pay approximately $14.6 million in restitution and to forfeit $6.0 million. Throgmartin was ordered to pay approximately $14.6 million and to forfeit $1.0 billion. The restitution was ordered jointly and severally between the two.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Special Agent in Charge Kyle Myles of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of Inspector General (FDIC-OIG), Atlanta Region; Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division; and Special Agent in Charge Oliver E. Rich Jr. of the FBI San Antonio Field Office made the announcement.

The FDIC-OIG and the FBI investigated the case.