Two codefendants of convicted swindler Edward Hugh Okun were sentenced to prison this morning under the terms of plea agreements reached with the government.

After tears, muffled sobs and declarations of dreams lost, victims of Edward Hugh Okun found some justice yesterday when a federal judge sentenced the Miami businessman to 100 years in prison. Okun, 58, dressed in two-tone, gray-striped prison garb at the sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Richmond, showed no reaction. Nor did he comment when Judge Robert E. Payne asked if he had anything to say about the $126 million fraud he and others orchestrated.

Until his conviction this year in a $126 million fraud, Carol May had not heard a word about her first husband, Edward Hugh Okun, since he left Canada decades ago.

A former Richmond-area branch manager for a mortgage firm was sentenced yesterday to 45 months in prison for defrauding mortgage companies and investors in a complicated, long-running scheme. U.S. District Judge Richard L. Williams also ordered Stacey Lynn Chamberlain, 42, of Unionville in Orange County to pay more than $1.2 million in restitution and refused to let her turn herself in to begin serving her sentence at the end of August.

John C. Curtiss spent the past 21 years posing as an Australian, sailing his 60-foot yacht in the Bahamas and returning occasionally to live and work in Florida. But the former defense contractor and longtime fugitive will spend the next few years behind bars for his 1988 convictions on 21 charges stemming from the sale of inferior equipment to the government and for fleeing.

A federal jury yesterday convicted a Haitian immigrant of mail fraud and lying to a federal investigator in a campaign of fake hate mail that victimized his church. Frantz Cadet, 48, is facing a maximum of 185 years in prison when sentenced Sept. 29, by Chief U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer. He was convicted yesterday on nine counts of mail fraud and of lying to FBI Special Agent Judy A. Sykes.

Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford made his first and last appearance in federal court in Richmond yesterday, requesting a detention hearing in Houston where he was indicted Thursday. Facing 21 charges that could net him life in prison in an alleged $7 billion fraud, the tall, neatly groomed Stanford appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge M. Hannah Lauck. Stanford, 59, wore leg shackles but no tie or belt.

In 2006, local television news anchor Gwen Williams Dandridge and her husband, Eric, began investing with Walkwood Properties, which offered a 50 percent return in 45 days. The money was supposed to be used to buy property facing foreclosure. Known as Gwen Williams to viewers of WRIC, she testified in federal court yesterday that although they initially made some money, they wound up losing $200,000.

A fraudulent home-repair operator will spend nearly five years behind bars for bilking five of his customers of almost $15,000. Albert Gilyard, 56, of the 8200 block of St. Charles Road in Henrico County was sentenced in Henrico Circuit Court yesterday to 10 years in prison with seven years suspended for two felony counts of construction fraud.

A man who recruited homeless people to cash stolen checks—including five he drove from a Virginia Beach shelter to Richmond—will be sentenced in federal court today. Myron Kylen Nelson, 25, of Charlotte, N.C., is facing up to 30 years in prison for conspiracy to commit bank fraud in a scheme in which homeless people were paid to cash the stolen and altered checks worth a total of $65,071.32.

Deliberations to start today in Okun fraud trial Federal jury to consider 23 charges in an alleged $132 million operation A U.S. District Court jury in Richmond is expected to begin deliberations today in an alleged $132 million fraud that victimized hundreds of people across the county. The jurors yesterday listened to several hours of closing arguments, a year to the day since Edward Hugh Okun was initially indicted. He is being tried on 23 counts of conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, money laundering, cash smuggling and making a false statement.

Okun fraud trial to resume today The federal fraud trial in Richmond of Edward Hugh Okun, accused in a $132 million scam, is scheduled to resume this morning. The government completed nearly two weeks of testimony on Thursday, and the defense has told the court it will not produce any evidence. The jury is expected to hear closing arguments today.

A former Richmond-area branch manager for a mortgage firm has been charged with defrauding five mortgage companies and investors of up to $1.4 million. Stacy Lynn Chamberlain, 42, of Unionville has been charged with bank fraud, 18 counts of wire fraud and interstate transportation of money taken by fraud. Chamberlain was arrested yesterday and faces a maximum of 360 years in prison and $5.25 million in fines if convicted. Her March 3 federal indictment was unsealed yesterday.

A former Richmond-area branch manager for a mortgage firm has been charged with defrauding five mortgage companies and investors of up to $1.4 million. Stacy Lynn Chamberlain, 42, of Unionville has been charged with bank fraud, 18 counts of wire fraud and interstate transportation of money taken by fraud. Chamberlain was arrested today and faces a maximum of 360 years in prison and $5.25 million in fines if convicted. Her March 3 federal indictment was unsealed today.

The ranks of fraudulent home-repair operators have been reduced by two. Henrico County detectives and prosecutors this week gained convictions against two would-be home-repair specialists who did no work or did work so poorly it had to be torn out. Combined losses exceeded $20,000. “In one case, he went up on the roof and just hammered nails to make it sound like he was doing something,“ said Henrico Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael S. Huberman, referring to Thomas W. Taylor.