Gary Lefkowitz

Gary Wayne Lefkowitz (born ) Based in Culver City, it served as an investment company which helped finance and build low-rent apartment buildings, Although investors thought they were buying legitimate tax shelters designed to help finance low-income housing, according to prosecutors, many of the projects were left incomplete as Lefkowitz spent investors’ money to cover personal expenses and a Colorado ski resort. One of these projects, an apartment complex in Kennewick, burned to the ground in June 1996 after builders left the site as they were without pay.

Lefkowitz was charged in early May 1994 by a federal grand jury with 45 counts of conspiring to defraud home builders, the Internal Revenue Service and approximately 7,000 investors. On May 18, federal authorities indicted him. On July 21, 1995, a federal jury in Minneapolis found Lefkowitz guilty of a total of 47 charges, which included fraud, obstruction of justice, and tax evasion. Despite a two-hour plea for leniency, presiding judge David S. Doty in Minneapolis sentenced him to 24 years in prison, a record punishment for white-collar crime.