Posted on Wednesday, 21st July 2010 by Laura Hernandez
As the verdict was read in Tampa’s federal court, the 32-year-old looked stunned and exchanged glances with his mother, 1980s best-selling author Marilyn Diamond Schnell.
Diamond faces 20 years in prison, according to sentencing experts.
Robert Barnes, Diamond’s well-known attorney, promised an appeal, saying the trial was the most unfair he had ever participated in.
Earlier this week, Barnes sought a two-week continuance, saying he needed more time to review the prosecution’s evidence and to prepare his client to testify.
Barnes only presented two witnesses, investors who said they still believed in Diamond and thought he lost their money through trading and not as the result of a Ponzi scheme.
That had been Barnes tack in the trial: that his client merely failed at his foreign exchange trading efforts and did not run from investors even after he revealed their money was gone.
But prosecutors contended that Diamond showed a consistent pattern of lying to his investors at the same time that he was offering them even higher rates of return to draw in more money.
Starting in spring 2006, Diamond Ventures took in $37 million from 200 investors.
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