LA County man pleads guilty to Ponzi scheme targeting elderly churchgoers

A Los Angeles County man agreed to plead guilty after running a Ponzi scheme that stole more than $5.9 million from mostly elderly church parishioners.

Once 48-year-old Sylvein William Maximilian D'Habsburg XVII submits his guilty plea he will face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for the sole count of wire fraud. 

In the plea agreement, D'Habsburg admitted to operating the Ponzi scheme between January 2018 and June 2023. During that time he hired recruiters to identify potential investors for two of his companies, Wild Rabbit Technologies LLC and BAI Intelligence LLC. They mainly targeted Filipino people in LA County, including elderly church parishioners, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

D'Habsburg claimed he had created an artificial intelligence that could predict the future and detect a COVID-19 infection solely based on a video recording and other claims. He also claimed to investigators that he his companies received roughly $500 million form retired professional athletes and celebrities such as Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and Steve Wozniak. 

He claimed he used the money to hire personnel and obtain patents, according to the Justice Department. However, he was lying and used the money to buy luxury cars such as 1933 Rolls Royce Phantom II Continental Sedanca de Ville by Barker, and rare antiques, including a pair of Italian-carved Giltwood Thrones from the 1800s. 

D'Habsburg is expected to enter his guilty plea in the coming weeks before a United States District Court judge in downtown Los Angeles.