Whatever
Happened To...
An update on past news
Marantette is
serving sentence
for defrauding
firm’s investorsQuestion: What ever happened to David Marantette, who published a weekly gold-investing fund newsletter under his company's name, Troubadour Inc., and was sent to prison for defrauding investors?
Answer: Marantette, who turned 62 last month, is serving his 28-month prison sentence. He is expected to be released Nov. 24, 2004.
Marantette was convicted of mail fraud and sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Helen Gillmor on Oct. 4 to serve his sentence at the Lompoc U.S. Penitentiary satellite prison camp in California.
Gillmor also ordered him to pay $336,064 in restitution to the victims.
After his prison release, Marantette will be required to report to a probation officer for three years.
The former Kauai resident lives in a military-style boot-camp dorm with several other inmates at the minimum-security facility. He is required to work eight hours a day, but a Lompoc USP spokeswoman said she was not permitted to divulge his duties. He is not behind bars and is allowed visitors on weekends.
Marantette, who managed the Troubadour fund from his home, published the Goldstock Letter, an Internet newsletter that was aimed at investors and traders in silver, options on gold stocks, and gold and silver futures.
His Internet site, which no longer exists, claimed that his first fund, the Goldstock Trading Portfolio, had made an average annual return of 20.86 percent and that anyone who had invested $100,000 when it started 19 years ago would have more than $11 million in the fund.
Marantette's Web site statements also warned of risks and that about 40 percent of his trades lost money.
The fund collapsed in 1999 after a plunge in gold prices caused the 30-plus investors participating in the fund to lose their entire investment.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Osborne Jr., who prosecuted the case, said Marantette made several false representations about his track record and how the money would be used.
"One of the uses he specifically eschewed was the use of the investors' money to defray his own personal living expenses and the cost of doing business, where in truth and fact that's where the bulk of their money went," Osborne said.
Osborne said Marantette's victims likely still are awaiting restitution.
"I can surmise that Mr. Marantette has no visible means of support, which of course terminated with his conviction and remand," Osborne said. "So, restitution is probably awaiting his release to business activity."
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