From Baby Shower To Prison Shower

Ian Gregory Bell celebrated with 75 guests. Six days later, he got three years.

This Week In Blunders – Sept. 7-13

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“You always pay for hubris.” – Carl Icahn”

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Ian Gregory Bell, 36, celebrated a poolside baby shower at his mother’s Tudor mansion in Denver last Saturday. On Friday, the busted day trader was sentenced to three years in federal prison for defrauding his investors, including a roster of pro athletes.

Perhaps we should admire his confidence in bringing a child into our crooked world.

Bell, who was indicted in December, walked into a Denver federal courthouse armed with Harvey Steinberg, one of Denver’s top white-collar criminal attorneys. He’d agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors who pledged to shave years off his potential sentence. So maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Bell’s esteemed counsel argued for leniency, saying that most of the bilked investors’ money went for trades to recover losses. Turns out, Bell was just a bad trader with a little too much hubris. Not so much a crook.

Prosecutors, on the other hand, had indicted Bell for blowing his loot on vacations, a lavish lifestyle, his girlfriend, and his mother, as well as his losing trades – which he covered up by sending his investors screenshots of their accounts with fabricated numbers.

U.S. District Judge Philip Brimmer was unmoved by numerous letters of support attesting to Bell’s character, legal trade publication, Law360 reported.

“There wasn’t anything legitimate about his investments from the get-go,” the judge said. “He was lying to people about the money they're making. There’s no suggestion that Mr. Bell was ever trying to do a good job for his clients.”

Brimmer sentenced Bell to 37 months in prison, a $150,000 fine and $1.2 million in restitution. It could have been worse considering the 18 counts for which he was originally charged.

And she’ll be walking and talking before he knows it. (Comic: ChatGPT)

Bell lived a life of privilege and used his high-society connections to raise more than $1.2 million in investments – some of it from professional athletes.