A Cedar Rapids con man has been sentenced to over 11 years in federal prison. Sixty-three-year-old Donald Washburn was convicted on 28 counts of wire fraud, five counts of money laundering and 13 counts of making false statements to the U.S. probation office.
Court documents showed Washburn lied about owning three mines, iron ore and other valuable materials that he sold investment opportunities in to others. The records say Washburn kept the investment money for his own use. He also falsely claimed he owned a casino dice game and sold exclusive licensing rights in the game to investors to get their money for his own use.
Washburn ran these schemes while he was already on supervised federal release for a prior fraud conviction. Federal officials say he was required to file monthly financial reports, but he falsified the reports to hide the money he got from investors in his fraudulent mine and dice schemes.
Washburn was sentenced to 137 months in prison and also ordered to pay $842,000 in restitution.