AUSTIN – Today an Austin man was sentenced to 70 months in prison and
ordered to pay $5,052,366.92 in restitution for his role in a fraud
scheme.
According to court documents, from 2012 until June 2018, Jason
Michael Schubert, 47, devised a scheme to bilk hotel investors out of
millions of dollars. Schubert identified potential investors by
conducting seminars on how to make money from investing in hotel
properties, known as “Rich in Five” seminars, charging the participants
substantial fees to attend. Schubert then solicited money from the
participants for investing in preexisting hotel properties that he would
manage and operate while claiming that investors would profit with
little effort on their part.
However, many of the hotels were older and in substantial disrepair.
Although Schubert had no hotel management experience, he represented
that investor funds would be used to renovate the hotels. Instead, he
misappropriated the money by paying himself significant “management
fees.” Schubert’s fraudulent activities depleted investor funds,
causing the hotel properties to go into foreclosure with a loss of over
$5 million to investors.
On December 2, 2020, Schubert pleaded guilty to one count of wire
fraud and one count of engaging in a monetary transaction involving
criminally derived property.
“This defendant engaged in a complex fraud involving commercial real
estate, moving funds among numerous bank accounts, and making many false
promises to well-intentioned investors,” said United States Attorney
Ashley C. Hoff. “Like so many other fraud schemes, this scheme was
designed to line the defendant’s own pockets with other people’s
hard-earned money. Now that his scheme has been dismantled, we are
confident that the prosecution and sentencing of this defendant will
bring a measure of justice to his victims.”
“This is a clear case of a criminal taking advantage of investors by
misappropriating their life savings for his own financial gain,” said
FBI Special Agent in Charge Oliver E. Rich. “The FBI will continue its
vigorous pursuit of those who commit these types of fraudulent schemes
to hold them accountable for their actions.”
This case was investigated by the FBI, with assistance from Internal
Revenue Service – Criminal Investigations, the Texas State Securities
Board, and the Texas Department of Insurance.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Devlin prosecuted the case.
