Ken Mattson Ponzi scheme trial date delayed

As Ken Mattson exited federal court Monday, he kept his gaze to the floor while walking past pews packed with dozens of the victims in his alleged $100 million Ponzi scheme. The room was silent, except for one of the victims repeatedly whispering “seppuku” at Mattson, the Japanese ritual of honorable suicide after disgrace and disloyalty.

The victims, almost entirely of retirement age, had traveled from across the Greater Bay Area to federal Judge Jon S. Tigar’s Oakland courtroom in anticipation of closure, as Mattson was originally set to plead guilty to a federal wire fraud charge stemming from allegations that he defrauded hundreds of investors through his real estate empire.

However, Mattson chose not to fall on his sword. Instead, his last-minute decision to abandon that plea deal and proceed to trial transformed Monday’s hearing into a preview of what could become the Bay Area’s most closely watched white-collar criminal case.

Mattson, arrested last year in an Orangetheory parking lot after federal investigators accused him of running a $100 million scheme through his real estate companies to enrich himself, was originally supposed to change his plea of not guilty on all nine felony counts, to guilty on a single count of wire fraud, carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years.

Since the plea deal would forego a jury trial, victims had prepared to read out statements detailing the harm Mattson had caused them. In some cases, people lost their life savings, ranging in the hundreds of thousands into the millions.

However, last week, Mattson changed his mind again, and decided to maintain his innocence on all counts and put his fate in the hands of a jury.

Monday’s hearing was meant to set a trial start date, but the sides were too far apart on their preferred schedule. Prosecutors wanted to begin in November later this year, much earlier than the June or July 2027 request made by Mattson’s attorney, Randy Sue Pollack.

Tigar told the sides to spend the next two weeks negotiating and return on July 1 with a date.

Mattson was arrested in May 2025 after a federal investigation found he had defrauded hundreds of investors out of $100 million. The investors, many of whom were his retired neighbors in Sonoma, believed they were buying ownership stakes in at least two Riverside County apartment complexes owned by two of Mattson’s companies, LeFever Mattson Properties Management and KS Mattson LP. However, Mattson allegedly kept those investors off the books, and used the investments to enrich himself, acquiring cars, a $10 million mansion in the wealthy East Bay enclave of Piedmont and a sprawling $6 million estate in the Sonoma hills.

Prosecutors say any returns these investors received came not from rent distributions but from loans, newer investors or Mattson’s other investments. The scheme allegedly went on for at least 15 years, between 2009 and 2024, while Mattson was amassing a real estate empire of hundreds of properties with $500 million.

After the session wrapped up, a crowd of victims gathered in the courthouse square with a victim advocate. Ninety-one victims had submitted statements to be read in court in the event of a guilty plea. The advocate warned them that some of them could be called as witnesses in the jury trial.