Leader of pyramid scheme gets 6 years in prison

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — The former chief executive of a telecom company prosecutors say was really a massive pyramid scheme that cheated nearly 1 million people worldwide out of nearly $1.8 billion has been sentenced to six years in prison.

James Merrill was also sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Worcester to three years of probation. He pleaded guilty in October to wire fraud and conspiracy charges.

Merrill apologized during a court hearing in which several of his victims talked about losing their life savings.

Merrill admitted to “reckless disregard for the truth” in the case, his lawyer, Robert Goldstein, said in court, because he was aware of the growing fraud but did not take steps soon enough to stop the scheme or disclose it.

“Jim accepts responsibility for his role,” Goldstein said in an interview after the hearing. “He’s sorry — extremely sorry — for the role he played.”

Prosecutors say Massachusetts-based TelexFree Inc. had few customers and made most of its revenue from people buying into the company with a promise of payouts for posting online ads for it. They were paid with money from new recruits, many of them immigrants. TelexFree shut down in 2014.