Schrenker sentenced to 10 years for securities fraud

NOBLESVILLE | Former money manager Marcus Schrenker was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a Hamilton County courtroom Thursday after pleading guilty to securities fraud charges last month.

However, Schrenker, 39, a 1989 Merrillville High School graduate, will remain detained at a jail in Noblesville until a Superior Court status hearing Tuesday on the pending divorce with his wife, Michelle.

Judge Steven Nation accepted the plea deal, but said Schrenker must serve a sentence on the Indiana charges and his 4-year, 3-month federal prison sentence consecutively. Schrenker received the federal sentence last year after he bailed out of his plane before it crashed January 2009 in Florida.

"Today is a sad day not only for myself, but for my family and friends," said Schrenker, whose voice cracked often while speaking. He also said, "I'm ashamed that I let greed take over my soul. ... I blame no one else but myself."

During Schrenker's statement, his wife sobbed and wiped tears from her face.

The conviction follows an investigation launched in December 2008 into Schrenker for siphoning money from clients' accounts for personal gain. Schrenker operated three companies.

Schrenker also must pay more than $600,000 in restitution to victims, face four years of probation and undergo psychological or psychiatric treatment. After leaving prison, he is prohibited from owning, operating, working in, or volunteering in a financial management enterprise.

Defense attorney P. Chadwick Hill estimated his client would complete both sentences in less than six years based on credit received for time served and expected good behavior while incarcerated.

Nation said he wouldn't have accepted the plea if Schrenker or his attorney didn't make compelling statements during the hearing. He told Schrenker his schemes were calculated and was worried he might perpetuate similar frauds again.

Hill pleaded for leniency in sentencing and requested that Nation consider that his client at times battled having bipolar disorder, alcoholism and abusing up to 10 Oxycontin pills daily.

He also said Schrenker should be given credit for taking responsibility for his crimes and shouldn't be further punished with longer isolation from his children. The Schrenkers' children are ages 15, 13 and 8.

"Who should suffer more: Marcus or his children?" Hill asked. "How big a chunk of Marcus do we want?"

Hamilton County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Jeff Wehmueller said he doubted that when Schrenker was plotting his financial schemes or his exit strategy he cared how it would affect his family.

"The defendant didn't just steal money from a nameless, faceless financial institution," Wehmueller said. "He stole from family or people who he considered family."

One of the most powerful moments in the hearing came when Charles Black, a financial scheme victim, described how Schrenker befriended him and his wife, Cathy. Black said he placed $15,000 in trust with Schrenker for him to manage conservatively so he could later tap it as a college fund for his two children.

However, Schrenker ended up pocketing the money and now Black has had to incur a lot of debt for his children, now college-age, to attend school.

"It is my hope and prayer that this court will levy a sentence that is conducive to the complete and total reformation of you," Black said. "You have three beautiful kids at home with one father. I hope upon hope that when you return to society that you are productive, you're a good father and you regain your trustworthiness. You will be in our prayers."

Michelle Schrenker declined to comment about the case prior to and after the hearing. About 25 people, half from the media, attended.

The Schrenkers are expected to return to court for Tuesday's status hearing on their pending divorce. Attorneys for Marcus Schrenker in the divorce case are seeking to toss a previous child support order levied against their client.

Annie Fierek, one of Schrenker's attorneys, said the divorce can't be finalized until the receivership case in Hamilton Circuit Court is settled. The next hearing scheduled in the receivership case is Dec. 3.