I've been involved in a few lawsuits involving Ponzi schemes. They generally fall into 3 categories: (1) a fraudulent scheme from the outset; (2) an honest scheme that morphs into a Ponzi scheme; and (3) an honest scheme that falls terribly apart, but the operator does not take advantage of the investors. Whether it is (1) or (2) is pretty irrelevant because it began as, or turned into, active fraud which should land the operators in jail. If it's (3), there are still civil, although likely not criminal, penalties. From the little I know of this situation, this falls into either (1) or (2). The fact that Dente continued siphoning off money and continued to seek other unwitting investors, it's hard for me to believe that "things just got away from him". As far as the wife and kid are concerned, they were brought into the civil cases as much so the courts can control the assets and avoid the dissipation of whatever assets may be out there. It'll be up to the Prosecutor to figure out where the criminal culpability rests. As far as the civil cases, the plaintiffs are just praying they can recoup some (ANY?) of their money. Typically, in these cases, the courts will only be able to get a hold of a fraction of the funds. It reminds me of the old adage: "If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is!". Or, as PT Barnum put it, "There's a sucker born every minute".