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It was the most unusual of situations, a federal court trial about an alleged $140 million Ponzi scheme without the defendant or an attorney to represent him, the defense table unoccupied, no opening or closing statements, no objections to questions or evidence and no cross-examination of witnesses.

Facing separate criminal charges, National Note of Utah owner Wayne Palmer declined to participate on Monday in what turned out to be a one-day trial over allegations by federal regulators that he ran a Ponzi scheme involving about 600 investors.

Unchallenged, therefore, was testimony that Palmer's company was insolvent from at least 2009 to 2012 and was only able to meet its obligations by constantly bringing in new investor monies that were used for operating expenses and to pay obligations to investors.

"The evidence in this case is unrebuttable that National Note operated as a Ponzi scheme," Amy Oliver, the lead attorney in the Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit against Palmer and his company, told U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins, who presided over the brief bench trial in which he was called on to render a verdict.

After the testimony of five witnesses, and hearing parts of Palmer's earlier deposition read into the record, Jenkins found that National Note had operated as a Ponzi scheme in violation of federal investment laws. He imposed an injunction that permanently bans Palmer from the securities industry and orders him to pay a fine of about $1 million and to pay back $1.4 million the SEC said he misappropriated from investors.

National Note was ordered to pay back $51.9 million that is still owed to investors and pay $900,000 in fines.

The company was sued by the SEC in June 2012 over allegations of defrauding investors. Then, in August of this year, a federal grand jury indicted him on 48 counts that included wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering.

Palmer has been acting as his own attorney in the SEC case because all his assets had been seized by order of the court. He filed a notice last week that he would not appear to defend himself in the trial. 

So on Monday, the scheduled trial date, the table normally reserved for a defendant and his or her attorney was vacant.

Among the five witnesses called by the SEC, was Richard Hoffman Jr., a forensic account hired by the SEC, who said he found that from at least 2009 to 2012, when the federal court appointed a receiver, National Note did not generate enough in earnings to pay its bills.

"In my opinion, during that entire time, National Note was insolvent," Hoffman said.

The court-appointed receiver, attorney Wayne Klein, said Palmer's business model was at first to make hard-money loans for bridge financing for real estate projects at 18 percent interest. But when that dwindled, he turned to investing in entities that he mostly owned that were to develop real estate.

To make those investments appear profitable, Palmer would loan the entities even more money, which they then returned to National Note as interest payments, he said.

"After a while, National Note just quit this charade and just made an accounting entry" to reflect an interest payment, Klein testified.

One of the investors, Rhea Stoddard of West Valley City, testified that she and her husband invested $100,000 with Palmer after he was recommended by Stoddard's husband's brothers.

Palmer assured the couple their money was safe, failed to tell them what their money was really going for and failed to make payments, Stoddard said.

"He told me it would be a really good investment and my sister would be really proud me for making 12 percent," she said.

Klein said he expected investors would file to get back $40 million to $50 million in claims against National Note, but that only about $4 million to $5 million would be available to return to them.