{"id":213790,"date":"2026-04-29T08:45:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T08:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/213790\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T08:45:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T08:45:20","slug":"businessman-admits-to-50m-fraud-in-new-york-ponzi-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/213790\/","title":{"rendered":"Businessman admits to $50M fraud in New York Ponzi scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"

A businessman accused of stealing more than $50 million<\/a> from hundreds of people in upstate New York as part of a massive Ponzi scheme pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges stemming from the fraud, according to the state attorney general.<\/p>\n

Miles \u201cBurt\u201d Marshall faces four to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree grand larceny, securities fraud and first-degree scheme to defraud, according to the attorney general\u2019s office, which secured an indictment against him last summer.<\/p>\n

Marshall, 74, prepared taxes and sold insurance in the quaint village of Hamilton, near Colgate University. For decades, he also took money for what was sometimes called the \u201c8% Fund,\u201d which guaranteed that much in annual interest. He took money from neighbors, churches and area organizations, with referrals often coming through word-of-mouth.<\/p>\n

A bankruptcy trustee later determined that Marshall had been using new investment money to pay off previous investors by 2011. He eventually owed almost 1,000 people and organizations about $95 million in principal and interest, according to the trustee.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Letitia James said Marshall also spent his investors\u2019 funds on shopping, vacations and restaurants.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiles Burton Marshall scammed his clients out of their life savings and used their hard-earned money to fuel a classic Ponzi scheme,\u201d James said in a prepared release.<\/p>\n

An email seeking comment was sent to Marshall\u2019s attorney.<\/p>\n

Marshall is scheduled to be sentenced in Madison County Court on June 11.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am shocked and a little upset that he didn\u2019t get more time. I don\u2019t feel justice was served,\u201d Dennis Sullivan, who was owed about $40,000, wrote in a text after the plea. \u201cHe has ruined so many of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marshall had made good on his promises to pay interest and process withdrawals for many years. But he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023 after a hospitalization for a heart condition and a subsequent run on note holders asking for their money back. He declared more than $90 million in liabilities and $21.5 million in assets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A businessman accused of stealing more than $50 million from hundreds of people in upstate New York as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[384,21571,84203,417,398,84204,9,11,10,421],"class_list":["post-213790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-bankruptcy","tag-corporate-crime","tag-dennis-sullivan","tag-general-news","tag-letitia-james","tag-miles-burton-marshall","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}