Department of Justice
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
CONTACT: Fred Alverson |
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COLUMBUS - Dunyasha M. Yetts, age 36, formerly of Dublin was sentenced to a total of 18 months imprisonment and ordered to pay $1.8 million in restitution to victims of a phony investment scheme he operated between August 1998 and August 2001. Yetts pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana. He was sentenced to 18 months on each count with the terms to run concurrently.
egory G. Lockhart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, J. Mark Batts, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Columbus Police Chief James Jackson announced the sentence handed down today by Senior United States District Judge John D. Holschuh.
Yetts operated individually
and under the corporate name of World Wide Financial Group. He defrauded at
least eight customers of approximately $1.8 million. Yetts induced customers
to entrust him with funds by falsely representing that he would invest their
money in the stock market and other securities. Instead of investing the funds,
Yetts diverted the money to other purposes, including paying personal and
business expenses and making payments to other investors.
As part of the scheme, Yetts mailed investors phony statements that purportedly
showed the net worth of their holdings.
In 2001, Columbus Police officers learned that a package containing 9,017 grams of marijuana was to be delivered to another of Yetts' companies, World Wide Sports Group. Further investigation determined that Yetts had rented an apartment where marijuana was being grown and another apartment where the marijuana was being stored and repackaged.
Yetts, who now lives
in Florida, was ordered to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving
his sentence at a date to be determined.
Lockhart commended the cooperative investigation by Columbus Police officers
and FBI agents, as well as Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin W. Kelley, who prosecuted
the case.