A Dallas resident who ran an investment scheme that cost his victims nearly $15 million has been sentenced to 17½ years in federal prison.
At the Jan. 28 sentencing of Rudy Avila, 69, Chief U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn read aloud the names of his 417 victims and the amount each lost. In addition to his prison term, Lynn ordered Avila to pay more than $14.9 million in restitution.
Avila pleaded guilty to wire fraud in June 2021. He admitted bilking clients through seven so-called investment companies, none of which was registered, as required by law, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission or the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.
Avila was represented by Mick Mickelsen of Broden & Mickelsen, a Dallas criminal-defense firm.
The case was prosecuted by Marcus Busch and Nick Bunch, assistant U.S. attorneys in Dallas. (Bunch left the government in October to become a partner with Haynes and Boone in Dallas.)
According to court records, Avila told clients he would invest their money in U.S.-based businesses, but instead wired at least 90% of the funds to bank accounts in Costa Rica, or used the money to pay other investors, a Ponzi scheme.
To further his scam, records said, he registered several businesses with the Texas Secretary of State, filed phony annual reports for them, set up business bank accounts in the U.S. and rented office space in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Two of Avila’s co-conspirators, Ivan Aguirre and Eddie Alexander Contreraz, pleaded guilty last summer. Aguirre is scheduled to be sentenced on March 31, Contreraz on April 15.