On December 19, 2018, a federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania entered a $26.8 million judgment against serial advance-fee fraudster Sandy Hutchens. This is in addition to the $9 million judgment against the front organization obtained in Pennsylvania state court in 2017.

Mr. Hutchens operated Westmoreland Equity Fund, LLC, a sham commercial lending outfit which claimed to be headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mr. Hutchens, acting under the pseudonym “Ed Ryan,” scammed the plaintiffs and many other victims by demanding fees advanced in anticipation of loans worth tens of millions of dollars, only to fraudulently withdraw the promised loans under false pretexts. Mr. Hutchens’s fraudulent enterprise spanned over a decade, using a series of front organizations and conspirators. An earlier iteration of this scam was detailed in a Canadian news special report on CTV titled “Unorthodox Loans.” 

Langer, Grogan & Diver represented individual plaintiffs who were defrauded by the scam.