Wednesday, April 9, 2003 | 11:28 a.m.
The man accused of bilking investors out of millions of dollars in a pyramid scheme pleaded guilty Tuesday to lesser charges as a result of a plea agreement, allowing him to avoid multiple sex charges in a separate case.
Franklyn Perry, 63, pleaded guilty to 15 securities fraud counts before District Judge Michael Douglas, admitting he tricked people into investing in a Ponzi scheme between December 2000 and July 2001.
Perry will receive a stipulated sentence of 15 to 75 years in prison.
Authorities estimate he received about $40 million from about 1,174 investors worldwide. Police recovered only $23 million from Perry's Las Vegas home.
In exchange for Perry's guilty plea, prosecutors dropped more than 500 additional securities fraud charges, Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Laurent said.
Prosecutors will also drop a separate case in which Perry faced 48 sexual assault and child pornography counts in connection with the phone calls made to women while he was incarcerated.
The second case will be formally dismissed when he is sentenced before District Judge Nancy Saitta June 11.
Mary Lou Clemmons, who invested $180,000 in Perry's scheme, said she was angered by the deal.
"It makes me feel awful to think he could get out in 15 years," she said. "He should be there for the rest of his life."
Clemmons, 76, invested her money along with her sister and her son-in-law, who invested a total of about $80,000, she said.
Defense attorney Michael Cristalli said the deal was in his client's best interest, considering Perry faced life in prison without the possibility of parole on the sex charges alone.
The plea agreement could have come because of lack of strong evidence on the sex charges, he said.
"I don't think (prosecutors) had a strong case on the sexual assault charges," he said. "You can't sexually assault someone over the phone."
Perry's guilty plea came moments before he was scheduled to stand trial on the sex charges, bringing to an end two complicated cases that have lingered in District Court for nearly two years.
Authorities claim Perry told investors he was loaning money to high-rolling gamblers who had hit their credit limits at area casinos.
He would pay some investors a few hundred dollars a week, saying it was the return on the money they gave him. The scheme required a minimum buy-in of $10,000.
Though restitution in the case won't be decided until the sentencing, Cristalli said he plans to object to any "inflated claims."
"There were a lot of individuals who made a lot of money from this," he said.
More than $18 million of the money recovered was repaid to about 900 victims in a class action suit against Perry, said local attorney Daron Dorsey, who represented the victims in the suit.
Those represented received 55 percent of their established claim value, he said.
"Many claimants were elderly and obviously didn't understand what Mr. Perry was doing with their money," he said. "People had dire financial consequences based on their investment. It's not hard to sympathize with them."
Clemmons received about $80,000 back through the class action lawsuit.
Lynda Glenn, who was also part of the class action suit, said she hasn't seen a penny of the $10,000 she invested. Glenn's aunt invested about $160,000.
Glenn said the deal allowed Perry to get off too easy.
"It's just not right. He's taken advantage of the elderly and taken people's life savings," she said. "He gets to live a lavish lifestyle in prison while people on the outside are struggling."
The sexual assault charges accused Perry of persuading a 12-year-old girl to engage in sex acts while being photographed while he was incarcerated in 1998.
Prosecutors alleged he arranged for the photographs to be delivered to him at the North Las Vegas jail. He was expected to go to trial in that case in July.
Cristalli claims Perry had permission from the FBI to possess the pornographic material because he was working with the FBI as an informant in a pornography ring.
Glenn said she was outraged over the pyramid scheme, but equally disturbed by the pornography charge.
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