ALLEN (WBAP/KLIF News ) – A federal jury on Wednesday convicted the owner of an Allen Brewery of multiple federal violations related to a ponzi scheme and a murder.
Prosecutors said 50-year-old Keith Ashley, a former Allen nurse turned brewer and financial advisor, bilked clients of over $1 million starting in 2016.
Jim Seegan of Carrollton was one of Ashley’s clients.
According to court documents, Ashley transferred Seegan’s money into his personal accounts and changed the beneficiary of Seegan’s life insurance to a trust he himself controlled.
Prosecutors accuse Ashley of killing Seegan on February 19,2020 and staging the death to look like a suicide.
“Ashley went to great lengths to defraud clients that trusted him,” said U.S. Attorney Brit Featherston. “By plotting and causing the death of one client to steal his money, Ashley committed the ultimate betrayal of trust and decency and the jury saw Ashley for who he is, a con artist who would go so far as murder to get what he wanted. Incredible work by investigators and prosecutors, as well as coordination between the Feds and the State have succeeded in getting this depraved criminal off the street.”
Ashley also faces a capital murder charge in Dallas County for Seegan’s death.
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