U.S. District Judge Audrey G. Fleissig has sentenced a St. Louis man to 14 months in prison for orchestrating a Ponzi scheme centered around refrigerant sales. The court also ordered Robert F. Rothluebbers, 68, to repay $287,000 to his victims.
Rothluebbers ran the fraudulent operation from October 2014 until May 2017. During this period, he solicited investments by falsely claiming he would use the funds to buy R-22 refrigerant in bulk at a discount and then resell it at a significant profit margin of 50%. He assured investors that the phaseout of R-22 would lead to increased profits.
However, Rothluebbers used the money for personal expenses and paid off relatives instead of investing as promised. He kept the scheme running by using new investors' money to pay returns to earlier investors and made repeated false assurances about returning the funds. To justify his inability to pay back investors, he fabricated reasons such as frozen accounts by his financial institution and issues with the Internal Revenue Service.
Many victims were semi-retired individuals living on fixed incomes who ended up incurring substantial costs in civil lawsuits and attorney fees while trying to recover their money.
In total, Rothluebbers raised at least $350,000 from four investors but failed to repay most of these funds. In September, he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one count of wire fraud.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted an investigation into the case, which was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Clow.
