On July 25, 2023, a federal judge in St. Paul ordered BMO Harris Bank to post bond for more than $1.158 billion as a result of the $1 billion jury verdict and interest award Robins Kaplan secured against BMO on behalf of its client Douglas Kelley. This case arose from one of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.
This ruling follows a historic November 2022 jury verdict against BMO awarding Kelley approximately $564 million in damages, and the court’s June 2023 order awarding Kelley approximately $500 million in interest.
The case involved former Wayzata fraudster Tom Petters, who was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison for fraud using accounts held at M&I Bank, which was acquired in 2011 by BMO Harris Bank. In November 2022, a Minnesota jury found that BMO aided and abetted breaches of fiduciary duty by Petters and his cohorts in using an M&I checking account to launder nearly $74 billion in Ponzi scheme proceeds between 2002 and 2008.
This is the largest jury verdict in Minnesota history.
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