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12/12/09 - ROCHESTER, N.Y. — An investment fund manager has been given a reduced six-year sentence in a $33 million Ponzi scheme that cheated 27 investors in the United States, Germany and Costa Rica.

Fifty-seven-year-old John Montana of Staten Island is one of four people convicted of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering in the two-year scam. At least $13.6 million has not been returned to investors defrauded between July 1999 to July 2001.

Montana said in federal court Friday in Rochester, N.Y., that he was gullible and didn't mean to do any harm.

U.S. District Judge Charles Siragusa, in departing from the sentencing guidelines, took into account that Montana had no prior convictions and that he was devoted to his family.