Quebec's securities watchdog says it wants a businessman convicted of defrauding investors of about $108 million dollars to get the maximum five-year prison term.
The AMF says Lino Matteo should serve the five-year term, and pay a fine of $4.8 million dollars, after he was found guilty earlier this month of running what was essentially a Ponzi scheme.
Matteo was the founder and president of Mount Real, which took money from investors and passed it along to earlier investors. The scheme collapsed when the company went bankrupt in 2006.
About 1,300 investors lost money because of the scheme — many of them ended up losing their life savings.
During sentencing arguments, the Crown pointed out Matteo, who represented himself at his trial, blamed everyone but himself — rules, regulators, and bankruptcy trustees.
Despite the huge amounts involved, Matteo can't get more than a five-year prison sentence, because was charged with violating securities regulations, and not through the Criminal Code.