7 years for $5.2 million Ponzi scheme?

Former Frankfort man awaits his sentencing for real-estate con game

Lee Anglin -- a one-time area newspaper publisher turned admitted real estate con man-- faces up to 87 months in federal prison when sentenced next month for operating a pyramid scheme that defrauded investors of $5.2 million.

Anglin, formerly of Frankfort, was charged nearly three years ago with mail and wire fraud and ultimately pleaded "no contest" to duping more than 40 investors from states including Florida, New Jersey and New York.

The money went for Anglin's business and personal expenses, and some of the money was converted to cash, according to his plea agreement.

Anglin, 39, who used to own small community newspapers on Chicago's Southwest and Southeast sides, operated a few business with impressive-sounding names -- Anglin Commercial Group and Anglin International Holdings among them -- from offices in Harvey, Homewood, Palos Hills and Orland Park, federal prosecutors said.

He ran ads in The Wall Street Journal and other publications, letting potential investors know they could earn double-digit returns by putting their money into foreclosed homes, which Anglin said he bought, rehabbed and then sold for a tidy profit, according to the agreement.

Anglin told his victims that although he was wealthy, all his money was tied up in real estate and he lacked the liquidity needed to pounce on red-hot real estate deals, prosecutors said.

Some properties that investors sunk their money into weren't even owned by Anglin and others were fictitious, including homes he "bought" that were purported to be in Frankfort and Tinley Park, according to prosecutors.

They said some of Anglin's investors did see money because his fraud operated as a Ponzi scheme, in which returns are paid to earlier investors with money received from later ones.

Anglin -- who has been jailed since spring 2007 -- likely will be ordered to make restitution when he's sentenced Nov. 17, but there's scant evidence that he has that sort of money on hand. Any properties he owned were long ago foreclosed on.

One investor from New Jersey who paid Anglin more than $350,000 sued him in federal court but was able to get only $484 out of him, according to court documents.