Georgia author gets 12 1/2 years in prison for defrauding women

ATLANTA – A judge has sentenced a Georgia author of a fantasy trilogy to 12 1/2 years in prison for bilking women out of millions of dollars.

U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates says the 61-year-old Mitchell Gross was sentenced Thursday for wire fraud and money laundering charges related to the scheme.

Gross was charged last year with scamming a Florida real estate agent he met through an online Jewish dating site into investing about $3 million in a sham company that he secretly controlled. They say he used some of the money to repay another woman who he had bilked out of at least $1.5 million.

Gross writes under the pen names Mitchell Graham and Douglas Alan. His work includes a suspense story called "Circle of Lies."