A Nevada woman has been sentenced to 120 months in prison for orchestrating a $7 million advance fee Ponzi scheme and obstructing the government’s investigation, as announced by U.S. Attorney Alina Habba.
Anna Kline, formerly known as Jordana Weber, aged 35 from Sparks, Nevada, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Christine P. O’Hearn in Camden federal court to two counts of wire fraud. The sentence was imposed by Judge O’Hearn in Camden federal court. In addition to her prison term, Kline was ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay $3,403,000 in restitution.
The fraudulent activities took place between April 2017 and July 2019 when Kline operated several shell companies that falsely claimed to offer lending services to small business owners seeking high-value loans often exceeding $100 million. Victims were required to pay up to 5% of the potential loan amount as a “fee” before funding could be secured.
Kline conducted purported due diligence on these loans but frequently provided victims with false explanations for delays in funding. Victims received falsified documents such as bank statements suggesting sufficient funds were available from the shell companies.
The fees collected from victims were used by Kline and her significant other, Jason Torres, for personal expenses including luxury vehicles, artwork, vacations, and also to repay previous victims in a typical Ponzi scheme fashion. At least six victims transferred approximately $7 million into accounts controlled by Kline due to this scheme.
Following her arrest on related charges in July 2019 while out on bail, Kline submitted a falsified .pdf document through her attorney that appeared to show threatening messages from Torres implicating him as primarily responsible for the fraud. However, forensic analysis revealed this document was fabricated.
Further investigations uncovered that Kline presented this fake report during a custody dispute in California Family Court under the guise of being generated by a non-existent forensic examiner named “Drew Andrews.” This deception misled the court and others involved into believing its legitimacy.
Additionally, Kline provided a computer claiming it contained an iTunes backup with alleged text messages from Torres; however forensic review showed data manipulation intended to create false time stamps aligning with when “Andrews” supposedly ran the fraudulent report.
U.S. Attorney Habba credited special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation led by Acting Special Agent in Charge Terence G. Reilly for their work leading up to this sentencing decision.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Kogan represented the government from Newark’s Cybercrime Unit while Michael Huff served as defense counsel based out of Philadelphia PA.
