A 54-year-old Houston-area man has been sentenced to seven years and one month in federal prison after pleading guilty to a fraudulent shipping container scheme.
Steven Patrick Jones also was ordered Tuesday in Houston to pay more than $8 million in restitution. The resident of Kingwood, Texas, and Panama City, Panama, could have received 20 years in prison for his May 2014 plea.
Prosecutors say Jones with others formed a company called Intermodal Wealth to offer containers for sale to investors and lease them for the investors to clients.
Jones promised an annual return of 16 percent, but prosecutors say the company had few containers and leased none of them. The partners instead spent most of the invested money.
Two other men pleaded guilty to charges and were imprisoned.
