Kenneth Courtright

A federal jury on Friday afternoon convicted Minooka investment consultant Kenneth Courtright on seven counts of wire fraud related to a $75 million Ponzi Scheme he conducted to cover massive business losses.

Courtright’s conviction came at the conclusion of a two-day trial in Judge Matthew Kennelly’s courtroom at the Dirksen federal building. He faces sentencing on Oct. 4. Wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Courtright, 49, who is the founder, co-owner and President of Today’s Growth Consultant Incorporated, operated the business out of his Minooka home with his wife, Kerri Courtright. She is the other co-owner and company secretary. They operated the business under the name “The Income Store”. Kerri Courtright was not criminally charged in this case.

Prosecutors say that when Courtright’s business model failed to bring in adequate revenues to pay promised returns, from at least January 2017 and continuing through Oct. 2019, he and TGC raised at least $75 million from more than 500 investors who executed “Consulting Performance Agreements,” in which TGC purported to provide investors with a minimum guaranteed rate of return, in perpetuity, based upon revenues generated by websites that TGC would acquire or build for the investor and then develop, maintain and host.

According to a court appointed receiver, the “Consulting Performance Agreements” were structured “in a manner that require(d) no effort from the investor beyond payment of the initial upfront fee, and investors were led to expect profits solely from TGC’s expertise and efforts.”

New investors, prosecutors charged, were “led to believe by Courtright and TGC that TGC only earned its profits from its 50 percent share in website revenues, not from the upfront fees paid by its investors.”

Courtright told newer investors that the upfront fees were only to cover the “purchasing, maintaining, hosting or constructing income-producing websites on the specific investor’s behalf.” However, prosecutors say, Courtright used tens of millions of dollars of that revenue to pay out guaranteed rates of returns to earlier investors.

However, TGC’s financial statements and bank records show that, from about January 2017 through October 2019, “investor websites generated approximately $9 million in revenues from advertising and product sales. During the same time, TGC paid investors at least $30 million in investment returns. The gap of more than $20 million between the website revenues and payment of returns to investors was primarily funded, in classic Ponzi scheme fashion, through the offer and sale of Consulting Performance Agreements to new or repeat investors.

The only other significant source of funds available to TGC during this time frame, prosecutors said, were more than $8 million in loans taken out by Courtright’s business beginning in May 2019. Some of those loans, prosecutors said, were “obtained from companies specializing in lending to distressed businesses.”

In December 2019, “TGC’s repayment scheme became unsustainable.” On Dec. 27, 2019, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil complaint against TGC, alleging that Courtright had financed ongoing supposed returns on investment “in classic Ponzi-like fashion.”

On Dec. 30, 2019, federal Judge Andrea Wood issued a temporary restraining order freezing TGC’s assets and appointing a receiver to take full control of the company for the purpose of reviewing its finances and actions.

According to the court appointed receiver of TGC’s assets, potential claims against TGC totaled more than $101 million, including 697 investors and 109 creditors.

There were warning signals more than eight years ago. In a related civil lawsuit currently progressing in federal court, Judge Virginia Kendall issued a memorandum opinion and order in January indicating that Kenneth Courtright was warned as early as 2015 that his business was at risk of being investiged as a Ponzi scheme.

“Early on, one … attorney (hired by Courtright) noted that the (Securities and Exchange Commission) investigation might broaden to include TGC,” Judge Kendall wrote.

She quoted an email from the attorney stating, “I have advised Ken [Courtright] that the SEC investigation could easily expand to include/target Today’s Growth” because Smart Money ‘is a Ponzi Scheme,’ and Smart Money was ‘in the same basic business as TGC.’”