Oregon Attorney General John Kroger has announced the conviction of Medford, Ore.-area developer and mortgage broker, James C. Nistler, in a complex real estate Ponzi scheme to defraud investors. Nistler, who was a high-ranking U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) official in the late 1980s, was unanimously convicted of one count of racketeering, eight counts of securities fraud and eight counts of aggravated theft in the first degree. The racketeering count included an additional 32 separate predicate crimes. The Oregon Department of Justice prosecuted the case with the Division of Finance and Corporate Securities. “This cases involved unconscionable scheme to prey on the elderly,” said Attorney General Kroger. “I want to thank the Division and Finance and Corporate Securities for their work on this case.”