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Former area man gets 10 years for fraud
SOMERSET — A former Somerset County resident was sentenced Thursday to more than 10 years in state prison for his role in an elaborate multimillion-dollar fraud.
Eric Skys, 26, was sentenced in U.S District Court in New York to 130 months in prison for his scheme to defraud Citibank of more than $83 million.
Skys is the former chairman, president and CEO of Rockwood-based Kaiser Himmel Corp.
In the middle of a jury trial in August, he pleaded guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud and bank fraud.
Federal authorities said Skys attempted to obtain a Citibank loan by using nonexistent Sprint Nextel stock as collateral.
He also forged various financial documents as part of the scheme.
Beginning in August 2007, Skys attempted to obtain a loan from Citibank in exchange for pledging millions of shares of Sprint Nextel stock that he claimed to own.
Skys admitted during his guilty plea he owned no such stock.
He also forged documents, including bank and brokerage records, purporting the existence of the stock.
Citibank detected the fraud and refused the loan.
Skys portrayed himself as a multimillionaire computer genius who was developing unhackable software. He made donations to the Rockwood community, though he did not always follow through on his philanthropy.
He donated $6,400 to the Rockwood Area School District booster club to buy new football jerseys. He gave refurbished computers to the district and contributed $2,000 to the district’s education foundation for an elementary reading program.
But Skys backed out of a promise to donate $200,000 to a school stadium project.
Skys drove a BMW and hired bodyguards.
When he was arrested in May 2008, FBI agents said they found 20 weapons, including a grenade launcher, in the house he rented in Somerset Township with the woman he called his wife and their daughters.
Skys was known as Eric Ashley Lemon and Eric Smith when he lived in Riverside, Calif.
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