A disbarred Denver attorney who was sentenced to three years in prison for theft died in custody Friday, a Colorado Department of Corrections spokesperson confirmed.
Steven Bachar, 58, pleaded guilty in September to felony theft for defrauding an investor of $125,000. It’s unclear how Bachar died, and a CDOC spokesperson declined to release any additional details on his death.
His death is under investigation, which is protocol after all deaths inside the state’s prison system.
Bachar, who co-founded Empowerment Capital and several subsidiaries, accepted $75,000 from an investor in exchange for 10% interest in Empowerment’s profits, the Denver District Attorney’s Office said in announcing his sentence in November.
The company was geared to fund women-owned startups, according to a criminal complaint filed October 2021, in Denver District Court. Bachar told investors he wanted to invest in Denver-based company, Revolar, which produced wearable safety devices, which he later purchased assets from.
Two months later, the same investor paid another $50,000 for more ownership in one of the subsidiaries.
Bachar never invested or repaid the money and spent most of the investor’s money for personal use, the district attorney’s office said. According to the 2021 affidavit, he spent $61,000 to pay off a credit card and nearly $32,000 to his ex-wife.
In accepting a plea deal with prosecutors, two other felony counts against Bachar were dropped, according to court records. Denver District Court Judge Eric Johnson also ordered him to pay $182,000 in restitution, the district attorney’s office said.
Bachar’s public defender Robert Swestka did not return a voicemail from The Colorado Sun on Friday afternoon.
His three-year sentence was a heavier one than prosecutors sought, The Denver Post reported. During a November court hearing, Johnson said he found three years in prison to be more fitting than two, which prosecutor Ashley Beck sought.
Johnson said he wanted to push back against the criminal justice system’s leniency toward wealthy, well-connected defendants, particularly in cases of white-collar and financial crimes, the newspaper reported.
Bachar was serving his sentence in Rifle Correctional Facility, a minimum security prison in Garfield County, according to Colorado Department of Corrections records. He would have been eligible for parole in February, records show.