DC Radio: Financial Host Guilty In Ponzi Scheme

Dawn Bennett

A Maryland woman was convicted of several counts of fraud connected to a Ponzi scheme in which the government says she scammed $20 million from victims by telling them they were investing in her luxury sportswear business but instead used the cash to support her luxurious lifestyle.

According to The Washington Post, a federal jury deliberated for less than five hours before convicting Dawn Bennett this week after a two-week trial in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

Bennett, 56, of Chevy Chase, Md., was found guilty of 17 counts including conspiracy, lying on a loan application and several charges of bank, wire, and securities fraud. Investigators alleged she turned to voodoo — filling her freezer with jars labeled with the initials of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawyers and spells involving beef tongue — in hopes of thwarting the probe of her financial dealings. Prosecutors also said she used victims’ money to pay to have priests in India perform religious ceremonies that would ward off investigators.

Bennett was a licensed financial adviser and hosted a weekly syndicated radio talk show in the Washington area. When she launched DJBennett.com, she began approaching clients from her brokerage business to invest in the sportswear company. She promised them a 15 percent return on what victims understood to be a loan, prosecutors said, and said that if they needed the money returned at any point, she would repay them immediately.

According to the charges, Bennett used promissory notes to raise more than $20 million from at least 46 investors in her company, DJBennett.com, authorities said. Investors ranged from personal friends to listeners of her radio program, which was heard in the DC area as brokered programming on Cumulus Media talk WMAL-AM/FM (630/105.9) before moving to Salem Media Group’s WWRC.

In court, prosecutors said Bennett spent victims’ money on expensive beauty treatments, her two penthouses, a $500,000 box suite at AT&T Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, and to have priests in India to perform religious ceremonies to ward off federal investigators.