Sacramento con artist arrested

Sorry everyone -- it's not Casey Serin.

It's actually a guy named William Arthur Sassman, who used four companies to solicit investments from over 50 individuals in a classic Ponzi scheme:

Sassman, 41, of Sacramento, was arrested at his residence...on a total of 100 counts: 43 counts of grand theft, 40 counts of misrepresentation or omission in the sale of a security, 16 counts of first-degree burglary and 1 count of use of a device, scheme, or artifice to defraud in the sale of a security. If convicted, Sassman faces up to 52 years in prison. Sassman is being held in the Sacramento County Jail and bail has been set at $3.2 million.

Some of the investment returns that Sassman was promising were ridiculous, so in some circumstances the investors should have known better. Of course, Sassman couldn't go without his favorite toys with all of that money pouring in:

However, Sassman made few, if any, of these investments and rarely paid the double to triple digit returns he promised. Instead, Sassman spent investors' millions financing his lavish lifestyle, including $1.1 million on his American Express card, $300,000 on automobiles, $75,000 at Polo Ralph Lauren and three homes.

I also placed a comment with the Sacbee article to make sure the Sacramento community doesn't forget about someone else that the attorney general's office should have arrested also.