Ponzi scheme member sentenced

A city woman who was part of an international investment scheme was sentenced Wednesday morning to six months of house arrest and three years of probation in Charlottesville’s federal court.Rebecca Dowdell, 31, was part of a Ponzi scheme that raised about $200 million in investor funds through a sham investment company between April 1998 and April 2002. Authorities said the funds were not invested, but held in accounts controlled in part by Dowdell. She pleaded guilty Nov. 8 to conspiring to commit wire fraud.
Former Charlottesville resident Terry L. Dowdell started the Vavasseur Corp. for the scheme, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Virginia. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2004. Mary Dowdell, Rebecca’s mother, was sentenced to 60 months in prison earlier this month. Three other men were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 16 to 41 months; four others await sentencing.