[2] In 2012, Durham was sentenced to 50 years in prison in connection with a Ponzi scheme that defrauded 5,400 investors, many of them elderly, of approximately $216 million, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
[4] Durham soon joined the investment firm owned by his wife's father, Indianapolis financier and longtime city council president Beurt SerVaas.
Durham was involved in taking over numerous ailing companies, including school bus manufacturer Carpenter, cargo trailer makers Danzer Industries and United Expressline, U.S. Rubber Reclaiming, and bus leasing firm Pyramid Coach.
[7] The offices of Obsidian and Fair Finance were raided by federal agents in 2009, suspected of involvement in a Ponzi scheme.
[9] On September 4, 2014, a federal appeals court overturned two of 10 wire fraud counts against Durham and ordered a new sentencing hearing, saying prosecutors failed to enter some key evidence into the trial record.
Magnus-Stinson said that "the huge number of victims and the amount of devastation" left little reason to reduce the original sentence.
He was on the steering committee for Mitch Daniels' successful gubernatorial bid in 2004 and headed the Indiana fundraising effort for Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign.