He earned a small town’s trust. He owed $95 million in what authorities say was a Ponzi scheme

HAMILTON, N.Y. (AP) — For decades, Miles “Burt” Marshall was the man you went to see in a stretch of upstate New York if you had some money to invest but wanted to keep it local.

Working from an office in the charming village of Hamilton, down the road from Colgate University, Marshall prepared taxes and sold insurance. He also took money for what was sometimes called the “8% Fund,” which guaranteed that much in annual interest no matter what happened with the financial markets.

His clients spread the word to family and friends. Have a retirement nest egg? Let Burt handle it. He’ll invest it in local rental properties and your money will grow faster than in a bank.

Marshall was friendly and folksy. He gave away gift bags with maple syrup, pickles and local honey in jars labeled with cute sayings like, “Don’t be a sap. For proper insurance coverage call Miles B. Marshall.”

“He would tell you about all the other people that invest. Churches invest. Fire companies invest. Doctors invest,” said one client, Christine Corrigan. “So you’d think, ‘Well, they’re smart people. They wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t okay to do … Why are you going to be the suspicious one?”

Then it all came crashing down.

Marshall owed almost 1,000 people and organizations about $95 million in principal and interest when he filed for bankruptcy protection two years ago, according to the trustee’s filings.

This summer, the 73-year-old businessman was indicted on charges that his investment business was a Ponzi scheme. He could face prison time if convicted.

Marshall’s lawyers declined to comment.

Total losses by Marshall’s investors fall short of the multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme masterminded by Bernie Madoff. But they loom large in the small, college town of about 6,400 people and its largely rural surrounding area.

Many investors were Colgate professors, laborers, office workers or retirees. Some lost their life’s savings of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Corrigan and her husband, who own a restaurant 30 miles (48 kilometers) east, were owed about $1.5 million.

Now they’re wondering how someone who seemed so reliable, who held annual parties for his clients and even called them on their birthdays could betray their trust.

“You look at life differently after this happens. It’s like, ‘Who do you trust?’” said Dennis Sullivan, who was owed about $40,000. “It’s sad because of what he’s done to the area.”

A reliable local businessman

Marshall and his wife lived in a brick Victorian, blocks from his office. Aside from insurance and tax preparation, he rented more than 100 properties and ran a self-storage business and a print shop.

His parents had run an insurance and realty business in the area and the Marshall name was respected locally.

Though he quit college, he was a federally enrolled tax professional. To many in the area, he seemed knowledgeable about money and kept a neat office.

“He had French doors and a beautiful carpet and a big desk and he just looked like he was prosperous and reliable,” Corrigan said.

Marshall began taking money from people to buy and maintain rental properties in the 1980s. People got back promissory notes — slips of paper with the dollar amount written in. Withdrawals could be made with 30 days’ notice. People could choose to receive regular interest payments.

Participants saw the transactions as investments. Marshall has called them loans.

For many years, Marshall made good on his promises to pay interest and process withdrawals. More people took part as word spread. Sullivan recalls how his parents gave Marshall money, then he did, then his fiancee, then his fiancee’s daughter, then his son, and even his snowmobile club.

”Everybody gets snowballed into it,” Sullivan said.

A number of investors lived in other states, but had connections to the area.

The promise of 8% returns was unremarkable in the ’80s, a time of higher interest rates. But it stood out later as rates dropped. Marshall told a bankruptcy proceeding that he assumed appreciation on his real estate would more than cover the debts.

“That’s obviously false now,” he said, according to filings, “but that’s what I always thought.”

Reckoning with more than $90 million in debt

The money stopped flowing by 2023.

Marshall filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that April, declaring more than $90 million in liabilities and $21.5 million in assets, most of it in real estate.

He explained in a filing that he had been been hospitalized for a “serious heart condition” that required two surgeries, costing him $600,000. As news of his illness spread, there was a run on note holders asking for their money back.

The bankruptcy trustee, Fred Stevens, blamed Marshall’s insolvency on incompetent business practices and borrowing from people at above-market rates. The trustee contended that by 2011, Marshall was using new investment money to pay off previous investors, the hallmark of a Ponzi scheme.

Prosecutors claim Marshall falsely represented the profitability of his real estate business and had his staff generate “transaction summaries” with bogus information about account balances and earned interest.

Money was funneled into his other businesses and he spent hundreds of thousands of investors’ dollars on personal expenses, including airline travel, meals out, groceries and yoga studios, according to prosecutors.

Marshall’s clients feel betrayed.

“We left it there so that it would accumulate. Well, it accumulated in his pocket,” Barbara Baltusnik said of her investment.

The ripple effects of multimillion-dollar losses

Marshall pleaded not guilty in June to charges of grand larceny and securities fraud. He’s accused of stealing more than $50 million.

Marshall’s home and properties were sold as part of bankruptcy proceedings, which continue. People who gave Marshall their money stand to recoup around 5.4 cents on the dollar from the asset sales. Potential claims against financial institutions are being pursued, according to the trustee.

Baltusnik said she and her husband were owed hundreds of thousands of dollars and now she wonders how she will pay doctors’ bills. Sullivan’s mother moved in with him after losing her investment.

In Epworth, Georgia, retiree Carolyn Call will never see money she hoped would help augment her Social Security payments. She found out about Marshall though an uncle who lived in upstate New York.

“I’m just able to pay my bills and keep going,” she said. “Nothing extravagant. No trips. Can’t do anything hardly for the grandkids.”