A Collin County man faces 99 years in state prison for defrauding 130 mostly elderly victims of nearly $11 million.

Edward S. Digges, 63, was sentenced Thursday after being convicted Feb. 4 on aggravated securities fraud charges.

He masterminded a broad Ponzi scheme that offered investments in credit card reading machines to older investors according to the Texas State Securities Board.

“Many of our victims were quite elderly and with significant medical problems,” said Joe Rotunda, the securities board’s director of enforcement. Federal prosecution didn’t seem imminent, so the securities board acted to get an indictment in Collin County. “We moved urgently on this case because our victims were in some cases dying.”

Digges, a disbarred attorney from Maryland, hid his previous convictions on mail fraud charges from investors and opened Millennium Terminal Investment Program in Texas. He employed insurance agents to sell his investment that promised $50 a month in cash payment for each terminal for an annual return rate of 12 percent on the original investment.

The scheme was failing, and the money won’t likely be recovered for victims, the securities board said. Nationwide the scam has cost investors $25 million, Rotunda said.

The securities board had been investigating Digges since 2005 when newspaper advertisements for the program appeared.