Seafood company owner caught in bank fraud gets 5 years - Projo 7 to 7 News Blog | Rhode Island news | The Providence Journal: "federal judge in Boston on Wednesday sentenced Robert G. Coutu, the former owner of Ocean Fresh Seafood 
in North Attleboro, Mass., to serve five years in prison for masterminding and executing a multi-million-dollar bank fraud scheme.The sentence, imposed by U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner, also requires Coutu, 59, formerly of Cumberland, to make $6,582,165.91 in restitution to Wells Fargo Bank and based on money laundering statutes, to forfeit $2,305,850.
Prosecutors urged the judge to impose a sentence of 136 months -- in the mid-range of the sentencing guidelines -- as a result of his guilty plea to a 17-count indictment charging him with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud and money laundering. But Gertner, in imposing a 60-month sentence, went way below the guidelines --which are merely advisory -- in punishing Coutu.
Defense lawyer James E. Felman, of Tampa, Fla., said after the sentencing that based on testimony and evidence adduced, the judge was convinced that Coutu did not run the scam as 'some sort of Ponzi scheme; and that Ocean Fresh was a legitimate business run legally and lawfully for over 25 years' before Coutu engaged in his fraudulent activity."
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