55 Year Old Gregory D Lone, the East Wenatchee financial advisor who scammed several elderly clients out of their life savings, will remain in jail and wait another month to hear his sentence for his crimes.
Douglas County Superior Court Judge Brian Huber is struggling with a sentence, and in a Tuesday hearing with attorneys said, “This sentence does not sit right with me, and I cannot find that it's in the interest of justice."
Lone is facing what some consider an exceptionally long three year term after he plead guilty to five counts of first-degree theft for stealing around $500,000 from several investors between 2016 and 2019 through a con he ran through his firm, Paramount Financial Advisors. But Judge Huber went on to say, “I cannot even find that it's consistent with the purposes of the Sentencing Reform Act.”
County Prosecutors agreed to a 36 month prison term in exchange for Lone's plea, which is as much a three times longer than the standard 12-14 month range. But several victims filed written statements with the court sharing the magnitude of their loss, saying Lone had cost them their life savings. It was found he even scammed his own sister out of $4.3 million she trusted him to invest. That was a crime he was never charrged with. His father recommended an even harsher sentence of seven to ten years saying his son had a good start in life, and that there were no words to explain why he would hurt his family so much. With all that has come out, Huber is trying to determine if case precident and the law allows him to him to impose a term of longer than 36 months, and he's told deputy prosecutor Smitty Hagopian and Lone's defense attorney Micah Murphey that he's most likely to reject the plea agreement. Huber calls this a very untenable situation, a very difficult situation, as the rules are very strict about when the court can impose an exceptional sentence.
Lone remains held in the Chelan County Jail ahead of sentencing, where he’s spent the last two weeks on Huber’s orders. His next hearing is set for March 20.