It was an image of success completely "untethered to any reality," prosecutor Jonathan Biran said. "He's likable and ingratiating, of course he is. Successful fraudsters almost always are."
Fabian supporters submitted about 100 letters on his behalf, calling him a good father, husband and friend.
"I personally consider Alan to be a visionary," his wife of 20 years told the court, adding that Fabian is an attentive dad and leads their family in prayer each morning.
A letter from his daughter, read aloud by Fabian's attorney Thursday, said she has always been close to her dad, whom she admires for his sense of humor and his courage.
"People just aren't that simple, people aren't black and white," Fabian's lawyer, federal public defender James Wyda, told the court.
Fabian lived in a $1.5 million Hunt Valley home, owned multiple properties and paid himself more than $800,000 in annual salary, but he was deemed indigent for purposes of representation.
From March 2001 through June 2004, according to the government, Fabian launched a Ponzi scheme, forging invoices and wire-transfer receipts to trick a Georgia computer-leasing company, Solarcom Inc., and various funding sources into believing that he had purchased millions of dollars in computer equipment and claiming they owed him for the materials. He generated more than $32 million this way.
A shell company he created to perpetrate the fraud was forced into bankruptcy in 2004, and he lied repeatedly in court to cover the crime. He also filed several false tax returns, claiming $475,000 in "purely fictional" withholdings, Biran said.
Fabian used some of the stolen money he received to launch the Centre for Management and Technology, a Baltimore nonprofit. The organization was created to offer technology consulting to charities. But U.S. Attorney Tonya Kelly Kowitz said CMAT was "nothing but the next vehicle for Mr. Fabian to get millions and millions of more dollars."
The nonprofit opened lines of credit with banks including Wachovia and Provident but defaulted, causing losses of more than $7 million.
Among the most disturbing of Fabian's actions, according to the government, was that he continued to launch new schemes even as he knew an indictment was pending. In June 2007, he took a family vacation to Egypt and Israel, flying via private jet with a security detail. The money for the $109,000 trip was fronted by Delaware personal assistant services company Hardin & Associates and never paid back.
