A bogus Belgian blue-blood is so remorseful he was practically speechless as he was sentenced in Manhattan today to at least three years prison for a nearly $7 million Ponzi scheme.
Asked by the judge if he wished to make a sentencing statement, Guy De Chimay, 47, answered with a terse “No.”
“He was too overcome with emotion to speak,” his lawyer, Martin Adelman, explained after court.
In pleading guilty last month, the suave swindler admitted he lied to victims about his assets, his connection to the Belgian royal family, and an imaginary investment fund that he promised astronomical returns on.
The stolen money is all gone, his lawyer concedes.
De Chimay lost $3.5 million of his victims’ money to bad, unauthorized investments, and lavished the balance upon himself, including a summer rental in the Hamptons and paying for an expensive divorce settlement.
“He has no money,” Adelman said. De Chimay will have to pay 10 percent of his future income to his victims, he said.
De Chimay had gained his victims’ confidence by claimed that he not only was a member of the Belgian royal family, but had responsibility for investing the royal family’s money
All not true, prosecutors said of the Canadian-born fraudster. But De Chimay’s grandfather was actually once in line to become a Belgian prince before renouncing his title to become an American citizen and fight in World War II, Adelman said.