Eric Rohr worked for Live Well from 2008 to 2018.
Another former executive of defunct Chesterfield-based Live Well Financial is set to learn his fate for his role in a scheme that helped topple the once-fast-growing reverse mortgage lender.
Eric Rohr, who served as Live Well’s CFO from 2008 to 2019, is scheduled to be sentenced today (Thursday) in federal court in Manhattan on fraud charges related to a bond pricing scheme that misled the company’s lenders and ultimately led to its bankruptcy.
Rohr’s punishment will be handed down by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams, the same judge who oversaw the criminal case against Rohr’s former boss, Live Well founder Michael Hild.
Abrams sentenced Hild – labeled by federal prosecutors as the mastermind of the scheme – to 44 months, though he’s been allowed to remain free on bond while he appeals the conviction.
Unlike Hild, who pleaded not guilty and fought the case through a lengthy jury trial in 2021, Rohr pleaded guilty and cooperated with federal investigators in their case against Hild. He also was a key witness during Hild’s three-week trial.
Live Well’s former head bond trader Darren Stumberger also pleaded guilty to the same charges and was a prosecution witness in the Hild trial. Stumberger had been scheduled to be sentenced today, however that hearing has been delayed.
The federal courthouse in Manhattan where Rohr will be sentenced. (BizSense file)
The scheme involved falsely inflating the values of reverse mortgage bonds to induce lenders into lending more money to Live Well than they otherwise would have.
While Hild’s sentence calls for nearly four years in federal prison, Rohr’s camp is urging the judge for greater leniency – and federal prosecutors seem to agree with that stance.
Rohr’ attorney, Gregory Bruch of Bruch Law Group in Washington, D.C., argued in a letter to the judge last week for no prison time and a sentence of time served with a potential period of supervised release.
“Such a sentence appropriately accounts for Mr. Rohr’s extensive cooperation, his acceptance of responsibility, and his genuine remorse,” Bruch wrote. “Mr. Rohr has accepted the painful truth that he participated for several years in a criminal scheme that resulted in significant financial harm to others.”
Bruch argued that allowing Rohr to avoid prison time would enable him to continue to run his new business, a home healthcare service called Assisting Hands Richmond.
“Such a sentence, moreover, supports Mr. Rohr’s ongoing rehabilitation by allowing him to continue working at, and running, the in-home care business he opened in December 2018, and to maintain his familial responsibilities, including caretaking for other members of his family.”
Bruch also pointed to Hild’s sentence as a guidepost for consideration in Rohr’s case and argued that Rohr should receive a substantially lower punishment than Hild.
Federal prosecutors, in a letter to Abrams last week, said they intend to ask for a lenient sentence at today’s hearing and highlighted Rohr’s cooperation from the outset of Live Well’s legal troubles.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office states that Rohr began cooperating with the government in June 2019, before any charges were filed in the case. Rohr also worked with investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018, when the regulator was looking into Live Well’s operations and before the USAO stepped in with criminal charges.
Prosecutors emphasized in the letter Rohr’s impact on the Hild case.
“Rohr’s information was instrumental in bringing charges against Hild. Most significantly, Rohr provided clear, compelling testimony establishing that he and the other co-conspirators knew they were engaging in wrongful conduct. In particular, he provided emotional testimony that the fraudulent scheme left him so ‘morally bankrupt’ that he decided to leave the company.
“There is no question that Rohr’s credible, powerful testimony significantly aided the jury in reaching its guilty verdict (against Hild),” the USAO’s letter states.
Michael Hild (BizSense file photo)
Prosecutors say Rohr, who does not have a prior criminal record, pocketed more than $1 million as a result of the bond scheme. He pleaded guilty to all five counts with which he was charged, including securities fraud, bank fraud and wire fraud.
Rohr, 57, graduated from King University and has an MBA from Duke University. He moved to Richmond in 2003 and began working for Capital One as CFO of its personal lending division. That’s also where he met Hild, who was head of one of the lines of business within the same division.
Hild left Capital One in 2005 to found Live Well and Rohr joined him in 2008.
Rohr has testified that as the bond pricing scheme at Live Well reached a boiling point, he left the company after he could no longer stomach what was happening. That was in December 2018, about six months before Live Well’s collapse.
Included in the sentencing package sent to Abrams were about two dozen letters of support for Rohr, including pleas from his wife, one of his three daughters, his father and fellow church congregants.
The letter from his wife, Linda Luck Rohr, described the career aspirations that led him to Live Well.
“On the night I met Eric, he told me that someday his career aspiration was to be the Chief Financial Officer for a company. You can only imagine my pride as a wife that my husband had achieved his long term professional goal,” Luck Rohr wrote.
“Everything changed in May of 2019. That was when the bubble burst. I will never forget standing in my kitchen when Eric told me that everything at Live Well was not as it appeared and that he was involved. It was devastating,” she wrote.
Luck Rohr asked the judge for leniency based on what she views as her husband’s remorse and his efforts to make amends for his crimes.
“To be clear, I am not proud of what my husband has done. However, I am proud of the strength he has shown since pleading guilty and the fact that he has owned his mistake,” she wrote. “Eric will look anyone in the eye and tell them that he screwed up catastrophically.
“I have no doubt that the court could never inflict a punishment as harsh as what Eric has already imposed upon himself. He will spend the rest of his life trying to make up for what he has done,” she wrote.
Rohr’s hearing is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. today.
Hild, meanwhile, continues his appeal process in federal court.
He is appealing both the conviction and sentence and is arguing that Abrams erred in denying his request for a new trial in December.
Since the jury verdict in April 2021, Hild has fought to have that verdict overturned or for a new trial. His main argument was that his previous attorney, Benjamin Dusing, was wrongfully ineffective at trial because of distractions from personal conflicts. Abrams struck down that effort in a 64-page opinion last December.
However, in that opinion, Abrams wrote that Hild’s claims of ineffective counsel “raises a novel legal argument,” which Hild’s attorneys have seized upon in the appeal.
Hild’s camp and federal prosecutors also continue to debate in court how much, if anything, he owes in restitution to the victims of the fraud, which are mainly large lenders.
Prosecutors contend that those victims are owed a total of $69 million. Hild’s attorneys question that amount, going as far as to say that any amount of restitution is unwarranted.
Judge Abrams will have the ultimate say. Hild’s appeal may also affect the restitution proceedings.
Eric Rohr worked for Live Well from 2008 to 2018.
Another former executive of defunct Chesterfield-based Live Well Financial is set to learn his fate for his role in a scheme that helped topple the once-fast-growing reverse mortgage lender.
Eric Rohr, who served as Live Well’s CFO from 2008 to 2019, is scheduled to be sentenced today (Thursday) in federal court in Manhattan on fraud charges related to a bond pricing scheme that misled the company’s lenders and ultimately led to its bankruptcy.
Rohr’s punishment will be handed down by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams, the same judge who oversaw the criminal case against Rohr’s former boss, Live Well founder Michael Hild.
Abrams sentenced Hild – labeled by federal prosecutors as the mastermind of the scheme – to 44 months, though he’s been allowed to remain free on bond while he appeals the conviction.
Unlike Hild, who pleaded not guilty and fought the case through a lengthy jury trial in 2021, Rohr pleaded guilty and cooperated with federal investigators in their case against Hild. He also was a key witness during Hild’s three-week trial.
Live Well’s former head bond trader Darren Stumberger also pleaded guilty to the same charges and was a prosecution witness in the Hild trial. Stumberger had been scheduled to be sentenced today, however that hearing has been delayed.
The federal courthouse in Manhattan where Rohr will be sentenced. (BizSense file)
The scheme involved falsely inflating the values of reverse mortgage bonds to induce lenders into lending more money to Live Well than they otherwise would have.
While Hild’s sentence calls for nearly four years in federal prison, Rohr’s camp is urging the judge for greater leniency – and federal prosecutors seem to agree with that stance.
Rohr’ attorney, Gregory Bruch of Bruch Law Group in Washington, D.C., argued in a letter to the judge last week for no prison time and a sentence of time served with a potential period of supervised release.
“Such a sentence appropriately accounts for Mr. Rohr’s extensive cooperation, his acceptance of responsibility, and his genuine remorse,” Bruch wrote. “Mr. Rohr has accepted the painful truth that he participated for several years in a criminal scheme that resulted in significant financial harm to others.”
Bruch argued that allowing Rohr to avoid prison time would enable him to continue to run his new business, a home healthcare service called Assisting Hands Richmond.
“Such a sentence, moreover, supports Mr. Rohr’s ongoing rehabilitation by allowing him to continue working at, and running, the in-home care business he opened in December 2018, and to maintain his familial responsibilities, including caretaking for other members of his family.”
Bruch also pointed to Hild’s sentence as a guidepost for consideration in Rohr’s case and argued that Rohr should receive a substantially lower punishment than Hild.
Federal prosecutors, in a letter to Abrams last week, said they intend to ask for a lenient sentence at today’s hearing and highlighted Rohr’s cooperation from the outset of Live Well’s legal troubles.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office states that Rohr began cooperating with the government in June 2019, before any charges were filed in the case. Rohr also worked with investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018, when the regulator was looking into Live Well’s operations and before the USAO stepped in with criminal charges.
Prosecutors emphasized in the letter Rohr’s impact on the Hild case.
“Rohr’s information was instrumental in bringing charges against Hild. Most significantly, Rohr provided clear, compelling testimony establishing that he and the other co-conspirators knew they were engaging in wrongful conduct. In particular, he provided emotional testimony that the fraudulent scheme left him so ‘morally bankrupt’ that he decided to leave the company.
“There is no question that Rohr’s credible, powerful testimony significantly aided the jury in reaching its guilty verdict (against Hild),” the USAO’s letter states.
Michael Hild (BizSense file photo)
Prosecutors say Rohr, who does not have a prior criminal record, pocketed more than $1 million as a result of the bond scheme. He pleaded guilty to all five counts with which he was charged, including securities fraud, bank fraud and wire fraud.
Rohr, 57, graduated from King University and has an MBA from Duke University. He moved to Richmond in 2003 and began working for Capital One as CFO of its personal lending division. That’s also where he met Hild, who was head of one of the lines of business within the same division.
Hild left Capital One in 2005 to found Live Well and Rohr joined him in 2008.
Rohr has testified that as the bond pricing scheme at Live Well reached a boiling point, he left the company after he could no longer stomach what was happening. That was in December 2018, about six months before Live Well’s collapse.
Included in the sentencing package sent to Abrams were about two dozen letters of support for Rohr, including pleas from his wife, one of his three daughters, his father and fellow church congregants.
The letter from his wife, Linda Luck Rohr, described the career aspirations that led him to Live Well.
“On the night I met Eric, he told me that someday his career aspiration was to be the Chief Financial Officer for a company. You can only imagine my pride as a wife that my husband had achieved his long term professional goal,” Luck Rohr wrote.
“Everything changed in May of 2019. That was when the bubble burst. I will never forget standing in my kitchen when Eric told me that everything at Live Well was not as it appeared and that he was involved. It was devastating,” she wrote.
Luck Rohr asked the judge for leniency based on what she views as her husband’s remorse and his efforts to make amends for his crimes.
“To be clear, I am not proud of what my husband has done. However, I am proud of the strength he has shown since pleading guilty and the fact that he has owned his mistake,” she wrote. “Eric will look anyone in the eye and tell them that he screwed up catastrophically.
“I have no doubt that the court could never inflict a punishment as harsh as what Eric has already imposed upon himself. He will spend the rest of his life trying to make up for what he has done,” she wrote.
Rohr’s hearing is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. today.
Hild, meanwhile, continues his appeal process in federal court.
He is appealing both the conviction and sentence and is arguing that Abrams erred in denying his request for a new trial in December.
Since the jury verdict in April 2021, Hild has fought to have that verdict overturned or for a new trial. His main argument was that his previous attorney, Benjamin Dusing, was wrongfully ineffective at trial because of distractions from personal conflicts. Abrams struck down that effort in a 64-page opinion last December.
However, in that opinion, Abrams wrote that Hild’s claims of ineffective counsel “raises a novel legal argument,” which Hild’s attorneys have seized upon in the appeal.
Hild’s camp and federal prosecutors also continue to debate in court how much, if anything, he owes in restitution to the victims of the fraud, which are mainly large lenders.
Prosecutors contend that those victims are owed a total of $69 million. Hild’s attorneys question that amount, going as far as to say that any amount of restitution is unwarranted.
Judge Abrams will have the ultimate say. Hild’s appeal may also affect the restitution proceedings.
“restitution to the victims of the fraud, which are mainly large lenders.” Isn’t Hild the one to pay the $69 million in restitution? Is Rohr on the hook for this as well?
This article makes it sound like Rohr only pocketed $1 mil in this bond scheme, so if he paid this back and was the primary witness – it seems he should get reduced sentencing, or at least club fed.
Never doubt the ingenuity of the American business man