The trial of a former Healdsburg investment advisor accused of orchestrating a multi-million-dollar Ponzi scheme has been delayed again.
A Redding judge this week granted another six-month delay in the trial of Gary Armitage, owner of the defunct Santa Rosa-based AGA Financial, and his business partner James Koenig.
The men were arrested in 2009 and accused of bilking investors out of more than $200 million by misrepresenting risky real estate deals as safe investments and withholding key information from investors.
One detail they allegedly failed to disclose was Koenig's felony mail fraud conviction stemming from a 1980s gold-selling scam.
A third man, Santa Rosan Jeffrey Guidi, reached a plea deal with prosecutors and agreed to testify against his partners.
The trial had been set for late June in Redding. Armitage's latest attorney asked for more time to prepare for the complex case. Shasta County Superior Court Judge Bradley Boeckman granted the request and moved the trial date to Jan. 2.
The judge also denied Koenig's request to sever the two cases. The two men, who spent two years in jail awaiting trial, remain free on bail.
Healdsburg resident Kathy Adams, who lost more than $400,000 in investments made with Armitage, said she worried the repeated delays meant investors, many of them retirees, would never see the case resolved.
"I feel that a lot of the people that are going to be witnesses are going to pass away before they go to trial," Adams said.
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