Owner of shuttered dairy sentenced to 10 years in $60M fraud
PHILADELPHIA — The owner of an award-winning organic dairy
who pleaded guilty to defrauding investors of nearly $60 million was sentenced
Monday to 10 years in federal prison.
Philip Riehl, an accountant and the majority owner of
Trickling Springs Creamery, ran a long-running Ponzi scheme that preyed on
hundreds of Amish and Mennonite investors, according to federal prosecutors. He
pleaded guilty in February to securities and wire fraud and conspiracy.
Chambersburg-based Trickling Springs Creamery opened in 2001
and produced milk, cream, butter, ice cream, yogurt and cheese. The dairy's
products were sold up and down the East Coast.
Court documents said Riehl lured investors to a fund that
made most of its loans to Trickling Springs and paid off older investors with
money from new investors. He and a co-conspirator also sold promissory notes in
an effort to prop up the struggling creamery, lying to investors that it was
profitable when in reality it was losing money, according to court documents.
The business abruptly closed its doors last fall.
"The people who invested their money, sometimes their
entire life's savings, with Philip Riehl believed implicitly that they could
trust him because he was one of their own," U.S. Attorney William McSwain
said in a written statement. "Riehl preyed upon that trust, swindling them
out of tens of millions of dollars in an effort to keep his creamery business
from going under."
A federal judge ordered Riehl to pay restitution, though
authorities acknowledged that Riehl's victims won't be made whole.
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