A Los Angeles County man agreed to plead guilty after running a Ponzi scheme that stole more than $5.9 million from mostly elderly church parishioners.
Once 48-year-old Sylvein William Maximilian D’Habsburg XVII enters his guilty plea, he will face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison solely on the bank fraud charge.
In the plea deal, D’Habsburg admitted to running the Ponzi scheme between January 2018 and June 2023. During that time, he hired recruiters to identify potential investors for two of his companies, Wild Rabbit Technologies LLC and BAI Intelligence LLC. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the attacks primarily targeted Filipino people in LA County, including elderly church parishioners.
D’Habsburg claimed he created an artificial intelligence that could predict the future and detect a COVID-19 infection based solely on a video recording and other claims. He also claimed to investigators that his companies received approximately $500 million from retired professional athletes and celebrities such as Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and Steve Wozniak.
He claimed he used the money to hire employees and obtain patents, the Justice Department said. However, he lied and used the money to buy luxury cars, such as Barker’s 1933 Rolls Royce Phantom II Continental Sedanca de Ville, and rare antiques, including a pair of Italian-carved giltwood thrones from the 19th century.
D’Habsburg is expected to enter his guilty plea before a U.S. District Court judge in downtown Los Angeles in the coming weeks.
