David E. Ruskjer told his victims that because he was not a licensed stockbroker, he could not take their money to invest it for them. But he said if they deposited the money in his bank account, he would give them promissory notes guaranteeing them monthly returns of 3, 4 or 5 percent.

From September 2004 to December 2008, Ruskjer collected about $16 million from 140 people, mostly Kauai residents. After a two-week trial last September, a federal jury found that Ruskjer used money from new investors to pay off old investors, in typical Ponzi-scheme fashion.

U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor sentenced Ruskjer, 60, to 10 years in prison Thursday for mail and wire fraud, money laundering and structuring cash transactions to evade reporting requirements.

The judge also ordered Ruskjer to repay his victims $11,586,334.

Gillmor granted the prosecutor’s request to give the victims the money and property authorities seized from Ruskjer in 2008. That includes $4,144,774 seized from various bank and investment trading accounts in Ruskjer’s name and a condominium in Koloa that he bought with $520,000 of investor money.

Federal prosecutor Les Osborne said the condominium is worth about $200,000 today. An automobile and two motorcycles authorities seized have no value because of storage fees, he said.

Gillmor said 71 of the victims submitted written statements that were included in the court’s confidential pre-sentence report.

Gillmor said the victims wrote that losing their money to Ruskjer caused three divorces and other broken relationships, forced some to seek counseling, caused retirees to continue working, forced some to skip health treatments and prevented children of victims from attending college.