Steven E. Tennies, 52, of Kooskia, Idaho, was sentenced on Tuesday to four years in prison for operating a Ponzi scheme in which authorities say he stole about $1.6 million from investors through an investment fund he managed.

 U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge also ordered Tennies to served three years of supervised release following his prison term and to pay approximately $1.6 million in restitution to the victims.  Tennies had pled guilty to four counts of mail fraud in July, and had agreed to a forfeiture of approximately 1.51 million dollars.

An FBI investigation showed Tennies and his company, Price Geld & Company, fraudulently obtained millions of dollars from dozens of investors in several states by selling limited partnership interests in his now defunct Adeona Fund.  Instead of investing the money as he said he would, Tennies siphoned money out of the fund for personal use. To conceal his fraud, Tennies gave investors fabricated tax documents and account statements claiming phony returns.

Tennies told investors that they could expect positive returns during all market cycles through a proprietary trading strategy in liquid and exchange-traded securities.  Tennies then led investors to believe their money was invested in the Adeona Fund and that the fund was posting consistent, positive returns. Tennies had actually commingled investor funds with his personal accounts and used fund assets to pay his personal expenses which included hundreds of thousands of dollars towards a divorce settlement, the mortgage on a custom-built home, rare first-edition books and artwork, and financing a car business. Tennies then paid investors in Ponzi-like fashion to keep his scheme afloat, using funds from new investors to pay returns to other investors.