ROCKFORD - A Rockford man pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge Frederick J. Kapala to mail fraud.
CHARLES R. (“CHUCK") HANSEN, 63, a financial planner, admitted that he schemed to defraud investors out of more than $700,000, using the mail to further his scheme.
According to a written plea agreement Hansen between 1996 and 2014 operated financial planning and real estate companies, including Senior Securities of Rockford LLC and Chicago Wealth Partners LLC. As part of his financial planning business, Hansen sold fixed annuities to retirement-age investors. In 2008, Hansen began to encourage some individuals to whom Hansen had previously sold fixed annuities to move their money from the secure investments to investments in Senior Securities and Chicago Wealth Partners, which Hansen told investors were real estate companies in which the investors could make a higher rate of return on their investment. Hansen used the investments in those two companies to rehab and sell homes in the Rockford and Chicago areas. Hansen admitted that he did not explain the risky nature of that sort of investment, and he told investors that their investments would remain secure.
Hansen further admitted that he entered into promissory notes with investors promising a high rate of return and that he convinced investors to renew their promissory notes for additional terms. At the time of the renewals, Hansen did not disclose to the investors that Senior Securities and Chicago Wealth Partners were failing and that he lacked sufficient funds to repay the investors the amounts owed to them pursuant to the original promissory notes.
Hansen admitted that as a result of his scheme, he caused investors to invest approximately $842,150 in Senior Securities and Chicago Wealth Partners, and that only $109,792 of that amount was returned to investors, causing the investors to suffer losses totaling approximately $732,257.
Hansen faces a maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment, a term of supervised release of up to 3 years following imprisonment, and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or gross loss resulting from that offense, whichever is greater, as well as full restitution. The sentence will be determined by the United States District Court, guided by the Sentencing Guidelines.
The guilty plea was announced by Joel R. Levin, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; E. C. Woodson, Inspector-in-Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Chicago; and Tanya Solov, Director of the Illinois Securities Department of the Illinois Secretary of State.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret J. Schneider.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
