An investment adviser charged with orchestrating a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme spent nearly three-quarters of a million dollars on prayers by Hindu priests in India to ward off a federal investigation and save her failing business, according to testimony at her trial this week.
Using investors’ money, Dawn Bennett paid a man in Washington state approximately $720,000 between 2015 and 2017 to arrange for the priests to perform religious ceremonies meant to ease her troubles, said a Justice Department prosecutor and the man Bennett paid. For one of these “yagya” rituals, Bennett spent $7,250 for five priests to pray for her across 29 consecutive days.
via Ponzi scheme suspect paid $720K for prayers amid SEC probe – Beaumont Enterprise.