Daren Palmer sentenced to prison

Daren Palmer, the eastern Idaho man who ran a Ponzi scheme, was sentenced in federal court on Tuesday.

Palmer was sentenced to eight years in federal prison. He was also ordered to pay $29,842,731 to the victims of his scheme. He will also be under three years of probation after his release from prison.

Palmer pleaded guilty in May on charges of wire fraud and money laundering, according to court documents.

In the court documents, it shows David Swenson and three others with Worry Free LLC, of Utah, invested $500,000 with Palmer’s company Trigon Group in September 2008. Palmer had sent Swenson a presentation in an email showing a good rate of return and a safe investment with Trigon Group.

In January 2009, Swenson called Palmer to get a quarterly statement. But in the phone call, Palmer said there were problems, then hung up. Swenson later learned the money was gone.

The documents show Palmer received about $75.8 million between 2002 and 2008 from 68 investors. They lost more than $20 million of that money.

According to the court record, Palmer used his company’s money to buy $110,550 in jewelry for his personal use, which constitutes wire fraud.