Brought to you by WBIW News and Network Indiana
Last updated on Friday, January 23, 2009
(PENSACOLA, FLA.) - An Indiana investment adviser has pleaded not guilty to charges he deliberately crashed a plane in the Florida panhandle in a botched effort to fake his death and escape financial ruin.
Marcus Schrenker appeared in federal court Thursday morning in Pensacola. A judge ordered the 38-year-old amateur pilot be sent to Miami for psychiatric evaluation by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Schrenker's attorney says he is not mentally competent for trial.
He was arrested at a campground near Tallahassee, where federal agents say he tried to kill himself after he parachuting from his plane in Alabama and driving off on a motorcycle he had stashed in the area.
Shrenker is also accused of defrauding investors in Indiana. Six people who claim he bilked them out of a lot of money made their case Thursday before an administrative law judge in Indianapolis.
One retired 83-year-old Georgia autoworker testified that he had invested nearly one million dollars with Schrenker, then later found $61,000 dollars was withdrawn without authorization.
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