Timothy S. Durham, the onetime chief executive officer of National Lampoon Inc., was sentenced to 50 years in prison for defrauding investors in an unrelated company he partly controlled.
“I found no sincere remorse,” US District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson in Indianapolis said yesterday before imposing punishment on Durham, 50. She said the former Fair Finance Co. CEO exhibited deceit, greed and arrogance.
Prosecutors sought a sentence of 225 years under nonbinding federal guidelines, which the judge rejected as unrealistic.
Durham and an accomplice, James Cochran, were convicted in June of taking money raised from Fair Finance investors, spending it on themselves and lending it to other entities they controlled.
The three squandered $208 million in investor money, according to US Attorney Joseph Hogsett in Indianapolis.
“This sentence is the longest white-collar fraud sentence in Indiana history,” Hogsett told reporters outside the courthouse after Magnus-Stinson punished Durham.