MONTREAL – Financial swindler Earl Jones was released from a Montreal-area prison on Thursday afternoon.
The convicted fraudster left the Ste-Anne-des-Plaines detention centre just four years after being sentenced in 2010 to 11 years in prison for defrauding his clients.
According to reports, the conditions of his release state that he cannot travel further than 50 kilometres from his residence, he cannot contact any of his former victims or work in any financial capacity and he must report in to a parole officer on a weekly basis.
Jones operated a financial-services business for more than two decades, although he was never a registered stock broker nor a registered financial advisor. He was arrested in July 2009 after his involvement in a 25-year pyramid-scheme fraud was revealed.
While some of his mostly elderly clients invested money with him directly, many entrusting him with their life savings, others were sought out and recruited by Jones, who used false promises of 10- to 12-per-cent returns on personal loans to lure clients.
READ MORE: Earl Jones victims to receive class action settlement cheques
His fraudulent activity even extended to close family friends and his own brother.
During the trial, it was revealed that Jones had never invested a penny of the money people gave him. After the Quebec government said that it wouldn’t expand its crime victims’ compensation fund to cover economic fraud victims, Jones’ victims finally reached a $17 million out-of-court settlement in their class-action lawsuit with the Royal Bank of Canada.
– With files from The Canadian Press
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