A former fiduciary advocate who testified in front of Congress was told to immediately report to prison yesterday to begin serving a 17-year sentence for trying to steal $5.3 million from pension funds to buy an Idaho ski and golf resort.
Matthew Hutcheson, a former trustee who oversaw pension funds for small businesses, was convicted of 17 counts of wire fraud and was ordered to begin serving the prison term immediately, according to the U.S. Attorney for Idaho.
Hutcheson supported a luxury lifestyle with the pension funds and tried to buy the struggling Tamarack Resort 90 miles north of Boise, in Donnelly, Idaho, the U.S. Attorney said. Hutcheson, 41, was also ordered to pay $5.3 million in restitution and serve three years of supervised release.
During Wednesday's three-hour sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge William Fremming Nielsen rejected Hutcheson's request to be allowed to turn himself in to prison later.
"You're too smart, you're too devious. You're going to have to serve your time, you might as well start now," Nielsen said, according to the Associated Press. The judge also dressed down Hutcheson for taking advantage of the hundreds of retirement investors whose money he oversaw, said the AP.
From one pension fund, prosecutors said, Hutcheson took more than $2 million. He bought luxury cars with that money (for himself and his family) and also paid off personal debts and remodeled his Eagle, Idaho, home (Eagle is west of Boise). Prosecutors also say he took $3.3 million from another pension fund, using it to try to buy the Tamarack ski resort.
Hutcheson was a trustee of the G Fiduciary Retirement Income Security Plan and the Retirement Security Plan & Trust. During the eight-day trial, the government presented evidence that, beginning in 2010, Hutcheson perpetrated schemes to defraud the pension funds, and misappropriated over $5 million of plan assets.
More than 250 people lost retirement funds in the scheme, the U.S. attorney said.
The U.S. Department of Labor investigated investors’ complaints. "The defendant's despicable conduct jeopardized the financial security of workers," said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employee Benefits Security Phyllis C. Borzi. In court, Hutcheson said he could recover the clients’ money and that sending him to prison would impede that effort.