A Scottsdale man who once had a role in a $64 million Ponzi scheme will spend his weekends in jail for the next eight months for stealing cacti.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona says 46-year-old Kenneth Cobb stole eight saguaro cacti from federal land, which is one of the biggest no-nos in Arizona.
Cobb pleaded guilty in September to theft of government property and a violation of the Endangered Species Act.
Not only did Cobb steal eight of the cacti from land near Wickenburg, and sold them for $2,000 a piece.
Two of those cacti were exported to Austria, which was another problem, since he didn't have a permit to export them.
For this, Cobb's going to be jailed on the weekends for the next eight months, then spend five years on probation, and also pay $32,000 in restitution.
Other than that it's not clear what Cobb's been up to since being sentenced in 2001 to 78 months in prison for his role in a "world-wide," $64 million Ponzi scheme.
He wasn't the so-called "ring-leader" of the scheme, according to federal appeals court filings, but a federal judge did order him to pay $23 million in restitution.
The role of Cobb and another man in the case "was to bring as much money to the table as possible to line everyone's pockets," according to an appeals court ruling.
