Reuters
11:20 a.m. CST, December 6, 2013

* Minnesota businessman claims wasn't told of plea offer

* Judge says Petters "tried to pull off one final con"

* Petters convicted in 2009 over $3.65 billion fraud

By Jonathan Stempel

Dec 6 (Reuters) - Minnesota businessman Thomas Petters has
failed to persuade a federal judge to reduce his 50-year prison
term for running a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme.

Petters, 56, claimed his trial lawyers had been ineffective
because they didn't tell him about a plea offer from federal
prosecutors, a year before his December 2009 conviction, that
would have sent him to prison for no more than 30 years.

In a sharply worded decision late Thursday, U.S. District
Judge Richard Kyle said the sentence was appropriate, and that
Petters' lawyers provided capable counsel, including by
notifying their client about the proposed 30-year cap.

"Staring into an abyss of nearly 15,000 days of
incarceration, Petters has tried to pull off one final con," the
St. Paul, Minnesota-based judge wrote. "He is entitled to
neither relief nor sympathy from this court."