Real-estate investor pleads guilty to count of wire fraud in Ponzi scheme

A Valley real-estate investor accused of running a home-renovation Ponzi scheme pleaded guilty to a count of wire fraud in U.S. District Court on Thursday.

Jere Parkhurst was indicted in 2011 on 27 counts of money laundering and wire fraud after a group of middle-class Valley investors gave prosecutors information indicating Parkhurst could not maintain his promised 20 percent return after the housing market collapsed, nor the court-ordered payments they were to receive when the scheme fell apart.

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