The Ile Camera
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Businessman sentenced to prison term for alleged fraud crimes
By Lena Khzouz, The Ile Camera
PUBLISHED: November 23, 2007
A former Grosse Ile Township resident who turned himself in for investment fraud has been sentenced in U.S. District Court to 52 months in a federal prison.
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William A. Sirls, who was 40 at the time he admitted his crimes, was charged with defrauding approximately 45 investors out of between $17 million and $40 million in an investment fraud scheme.
As part of his sentence Oct. 26, he also was ordered to make more than $9.2 million in restitution to his victims.
With money he made in the fraud scheme, he allegedly purchased property including his residence on Sherwood Drive.
Ken Walker of Grosse Ile and Marco Island, Fla., was among the individuals listed as an investor.
Walker allegedly lost $2.4 million of nearly $4.9 million in relation to a real estate transaction, according to published reports.
Authorities learned about the scheme when Sirls turned himself in.
Sirls is the former senior vice president of Wachovia Securities and former manager of the Wachovia Securities office in Toledo.
The charges allege that from January 2000 through September 2006, he fraudulently solicited investments in the purported profit from nonexistent "busted trades" and "builder discounted real estate."
Busted trades occur when a customer of a brokerage firm orders the purchase of a stock, the brokerage firm buys the stock, the customer does not pay for the stock and the broker then sells the stock for a profit.
Sirls would tell investors that there were opportunities to pick up busted trades, which can be a bargain for the purchaser if the stock increases in value.
However, there were no such trades and Sirls just took the money.
Second was a home building development investment scheme, where Sirls would tell investors that a number of homes were yet to be sold in a series of developments in California for a bargain.
People would give money to him under the pretense that they were investing, but they were not.
Sirls also engaged in prohibited financial transactions.
The case was investigated by the Toledo Office of Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Uram was the prosecutor.
The case was heard by Judge Jack Zouhary of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio Western Division.
According to court documents, on May 7, Sirls pleaded guilty to both counts.
Count two charges Sirls with engaging in monetary transactions totaling between $17 million and $40 million in property derived from his actions.
In a plea agreement and at the guilty plea hearing, Sirls admitted that he engaged in $17 million of prohibited monetary transactions, according to the documents.
Sirls also agreed to the criminal forfeiture of the property involved in this case, which includes property on Southfield Road in Lincoln Park. A business that is currently on that property is Precision Fit Windows.
Sirls had acquired the Lincoln Park property in the name of MDECS, a Michigan limited liability corporation he owned.
"That property has been forfeited to the United States, and we will sell it in the near future and apply the net proceeds to pay the victims in the case," Uram said.
The Lincoln Park property is the only one of Sirls' properties that actually has been forfeited and that the United States plans to sell, he said.
The others were either encumbered by large mortgages or otherwise would not result in any significant funds after a sale, he said.
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