HOUSTON (AP) - A 75-year-old Texas man who spent years in Mexico as a fugitive has been sentenced to 40 years in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution of more than $37 million after pleading guilty to running a fraud scheme that bilked more than 500 investors.
The prison term for Butch Ballow, formerly of Galveston County, was the maximum U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. could impose.
Prosecutors said Ballow defrauded investors in a Nevada firm known as E-SOL International. A witness who said he lost $5 million testified at the sentencing hearing Friday that Ballow used religious pretenses to convince his victims to invest.
Ballow was scheduled for sentencing in 2004 for a previous fraud conviction but failed to report to court. He was arrested six years later in Mexico.
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