Huntley man gets 45 months in prison for $1 million fraud
A Huntley man who defrauded people of more than $1 million was sentenced to 45 months in federal prison Monday.
Frank L. Beaudette, 61, was sentenced in the U.S. Northern Illinois District court in Rockford. He is not eligible for parole.
He was also ordered to repay $1,050,809.92 to his victims.
In December, Beaudette pleaded guilty to wire fraud. He admitted that from 1995 to September 2010, he obtained money from at least 25 people by befriending them, then persuaded them to invest in a “friend’s” computer equipment business. He told them the business needed capital to complete a large sale. Beaudette guaranteed the loans with personal promissory notes, which would pay a large amount of interest.
When he failed to repay the loans, Beaudette told the investors the computer business hadn’t been able to collect what it was owed from its customer. In some cases, according to his plea, he managed to persuade the investors to lend him more money, telling them all of it would be repaid from proceeds of the sale of airplanes by his business, Thunderbird Aviation. The additional money was needed, he said, to complete the sales.
Beaudette spent the money on personal uses.
Beaudette could have been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.