REWALD GETS 80-YEAR TERM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000605480007-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 30, 2011
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: December 10, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/30: CIA-RDP90-00552R000605480007-3
HONOLULU ADVERTISER (HI)
10 December 1985
Rewald 8O-yearterm
gets $352,000 fine, restitution ordered
By Walter Wright and a Kalanianaole Highway, waterfront
Advertijet Staff warn mansion.
Ronald Rewald was sentenced yesterday
to 80 years in federal prison. fined $352,-
000. and ordered to pay restitution which
may reach $13 million.
U.S. District Judge Harold Fong said he
did not know of a "more reprehensible set
of circumstances" than Rewald's crimes,
including fraud against widows, a cancer.
victim, "the young.' the old, the Infirm,
and even the blind."
Rewald, 43, will be eligible for. parole in
10 years under federal law. 'The judge
recommended no parole until Rewald has
served at least one third of the 80-year
sentence - he would be 71 years old by
then.
Rewald's attorneys said they will appeal
the conviction. but the judge ordered Re-
wald imprisoned immediately and held
wiViout bond. Rewald was returned to
Oahu Community Correctional Center to
await transfer to a federal facility on the
Mainland, probably in about three weeks.
Rewald was convicted of 94 counts of
fraud, perjury and tax evasion after an 11-
week trial that ended Oct. 21. He faced a
theoretical maximum sentence of 481
years in jail for the convictions stemming
-from actions taken at his. phony invest-
ment firm - Bishop Baldwin Rewald Dill-
ingham & Wong.
The prosecution asked for a 100-year
sentence, but appeared pleasantly sur-
prised that Judge Fong imposed more
than 50 years.
"A very appropriate sentence," said As-
sistant U.S. Attorney John Peyton. one of
the prosecutors.
"Now," said U.S. Magistrate Joseph
Gedan to courtroom observers after the
sentencing, "you know what 'the book'
looks like."
Fong meted out the years of the sen-
tence in specific retribution for crimes
against particular investors.
There was five years for defrauding
blind Chester Owen of California. five
yeara'for canter victim I.dnl' Sutton of
Honolulu,. and five years for widow There-
sa Black, whose husband and two sons.
had died in an! airplane crash' and who
entrusted Rewald with the proceeds of
her husband's life insurance policy.:
Rewald took in $22 million, repaid about
half of it in "interest," spent $5 million on
operations, and lavished another $5 million
on himself. for sex, fancy cars, polo ponies
The judge ordered Rewald to pay'resti-
tution to the 37 investors named, in the
criminal complaint in the case,' and said he
will consider the prosecution request that
restitution be ordered for all investors,
who lost an estimated total of $13 million.
Defense attorney Wayne Parsons said
Rewald told him no male members of his
family had ever lived past 60, and that
even an 18-year sentence would be a life
sentence for him.
- Fong, said he,;got,-letters from'-Rewald's
wife, Nancy. and .daughters Pamela' and
Buffy,.and called their plight "part of the
tragedy. of the Rewald saga" brought on
by Rewald himself.
"You .; will not be' there when Buffy,
graduates, you will , not be there when
your children marry. you will not be there
to help the Rewald family not be-
cause the government prosecuted you but
because you yourself injected yourself
into criminal' actions, Fong said. .
Rewald slumped in his chair and dabbed
at hij eyes with a handkerchief while the
judge spoke. But Parsons said that Rewald
insists he is innocent, and that "nobody
feels worse about the investors than Mr.-
Rewald." . . .
Fong told Rewald he, wondered if Re-
wald's "feeling about the losses of inves-
tors is caused by their loss or' caused by'
the fact that you were caught."
The Rewald case received international
attention when Rewald claimed that he
took the money at the direction of the
CIA to maintain a "cover" for intelligence
operations.
The CIA did use Rewald' to provide busi-
ness telephone numbers ' and addresses
which CIA personnel could use as "com-
mercial cover." But the agency denied
knowledge of Rewald's schemes, in which
investors were promised 26 percent return
on investments which never took-place.
Defense attorney Parsons said no one
really knows the true extent of the CIA's.
involvement with Rewald.
"Perhaps," the judge told Rewald,
"there is one who knows - and that one
is you. But you have chosen to remain
silent."
Rewald, who did not take the stand in
his own defense during the trial, told the
judge yesterday that he had been advised
not to say anything at sentencing either.
The judge ' suggested' that Rewald's si-
lence may' be only a, temporary strategy
to make his story more saleable to a pub-
lishing company or movie producer.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/30: CIA-RDP90-00552R000605480007-3