Argyll Equities chief gets 15 years, must pay $81M restitution
in fraud case  The president of an equity firm that did business
in San Diego was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison and
ordered to pay more than $81 million in restitution after
defrauding corporate executives in multiple countries, the U.S.
Department of Justice said.  Douglas McClain Jr., 38, president
of Argyll Equities, was sentenced in federal court for scheming
victims in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, China,
England and Belgium. He will also have to forfeit several
million dollars in assets that he earned from his illegal
practices, including diamond jewelry, a luxury home in Florida,
and other cash and securities.  In 2004, McClain conspired with
loan brokers by falsely representing that Argyll was an
institutional lender with significant cash to lend to corporate
executives and other individuals, the Justice Department said.
McClain and others then fraudulently persuaded corporate
executives to commit millions of dollars