Senior living exec ordered to repay $79 million to defrauded investors despite sentence commutation by Trump – News – McKnight’s Senior Living

Jon Michael Harder, the former CEO of Sunwest Management, must repay $79.5 million in restitution to investors he was found guilty of defrauding, even though his prison sentence was commuted in a last-minute move by former President Trump, a judge ruled Monday.

Harder’s sentence, which he began serving in 2016, included three years of supervised release and restitution to his victims.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon noted in his ruling this week that although the prison sentence was commuted, the remaining components of the sentence were left intact, according to The Oregonian.

Harder already had served five years of a 15-year sentence for what the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the District of Oregon called the largest investor fraud prosecution in the state’s history. He originally was indicted in 2012 on 56 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and other charges. The government accused him of defrauding more than 1,000 investors out of $130 million in a Ponzi scheme.

Harder pleaded guilty in 2015 to one felony count of mail fraud and one felony count of money laundering. He admitted to lying to more than 50 investors to obtain more than $5 million from late 2007 through February 2008. 

At one point, Sunwest owned about 300 assisted living communities. Harder left the company in 2009 as part of a corporate restructuring effort.

The January announcement of his prison sentence commutation contained a statement from now-retired U.S. District Court Chief Judge Michael Hogan, who oversaw Sunwest’s bankruptcy and receivership. In it, Hogan praised Harder’s “full cooperation against his substantial financial and penal interests,” which helped secure the sale of the company’s assets, “ensuring that Sunwest’s investors recovered more of their investment, seniors could continue living in their facilities, and employees could retain their livelihoods.”