A federal judge in Utah ordered Matthew Shane Perkins to repay investors $77,683,091.96, an amount spelled out down to the penny in the court’s restitution order. That number isn’t money already returned to anyone. It’s the debt a judge says Perkins now owes on top of a 15-year prison sentence handed down September 3, 2026. Getting a restitution order and actually collecting on it turn out to be two very different things, and the public record in this case shows why.
Households that have ever wondered what happens after a fraud case ends in a headline number and a prison sentence are looking at a real example of the gap between “ordered to pay” and “actually paid.”
A restitution order precise to the penny: $77,683,091.96
U.S. District Court Judge Ann Marie McIff Allen sentenced Matthew Shane Perkins, 47, of Washington City, Utah, to 180 months in prison and ordered him to pay $77,683,091.96 in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah. That figure is nearly identical to the amount Perkins had already agreed to repay in his February 2026 plea deal, which means little changed in the seven months between his guilty plea and his sentencing except the addition of a prison term. Federal prosecutors describe the sum as the total outstanding loss to more than 200 investors who put money into funds Perkins traded.
Free retirement updates: One number can cost or save hundreds a month in retirement. The free Retirement Shield newsletter surfaces the ones worth knowing. Sign up free.
How $133 million on paper became under $13 million in real accounts
The restitution figure traces back to a gap between what Perkins told people and what actually existed. In early November 2025, Perkins provided RentDue Capital, the firm that raised money on his behalf, with an altered brokerage statement claiming more than $133 million was sitting in the funds. According to the Utah Division of Securities, the real balance at that point was less than $13 million, and by the time the scheme collapsed, the operation had less than $13 million remaining against the roughly $89 million investors had put in. The difference between those two numbers, adjusted for what little was later recovered, is where the $77,683,091.96 figure comes from.
IRS Criminal Investigation Acting Special Agent in Charge David Lowe framed the restitution order as a direct response to that gap between the story investors were told and the money that actually existed. “Perkins’ lengthy prison sentence and massive restitution order reflects the gravity of the defendant’s actions,” Lowe said, “and makes clear that when someone lies about performance, conceals losses, and siphons off other people’s money for themselves, IRS CI will uncover the truth.” The dollar figure in the order isn’t a rounded estimate; it’s the number investigators arrived at after tracing what came in, what was lost trading, and what Perkins kept.
Why a court orders full restitution even when it won’t all be paid
Federal law generally requires judges to order restitution equal to a fraud victim’s full provable loss, regardless of whether the defendant has any realistic way to pay it. That’s part of why a restitution order and a defendant’s actual net worth can be worlds apart: the order in Perkins’ case reflects what more than 200 investors lost, not what he has left to give back. The three years of supervised release that follow his prison term give the government an ongoing mechanism to collect against future income and assets, but supervised release doesn’t manufacture money that was already spent or gambled away in day trading.
A plane, a cabin, luxury vehicles and an $80,000 hunting trip
Investigators tied specific purchases to the missing money. The Utah Division of Securities’ account of the sentencing lists a down payment on real estate, a cabin, luxury vehicles, an airplane, and an $80,000 guided hunting trip in British Columbia among the personal expenditures Perkins made with investor funds. None of that spending resembled the active options trading investors were told their money was funding, and tens of millions more were simply lost in day trading that never recovered.
What forfeiture recovers, and what it doesn’t
Some of the missing money is, at least on paper, recoverable. In his plea agreement, Perkins agreed to forfeit money and assets traceable to the fraud, including more than $13 million in cash, a cabin, an airplane, and multiple vehicles, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s February 2026 plea announcement. Even added together, those forfeited assets fall tens of millions of dollars short of the $77,683,091.96 restitution order, because so much of the original $89 million was lost trading rather than spent on anything a court can seize and sell.
The real odds an investor sees that money again
The Utah Division of Securities has been direct with RentDue Capital investors about what a restitution order actually means in practice. In its own investor alert, the Division warns that “the chance of full recovery is very low,” that many defendants “will not have sufficient assets to repay their victims,” and that when payments do happen, victims should expect “a series of small payments over a long period of time” processed through the court system rather than a lump sum. That is the honest reading of a $77,683,091.96 judgment against a man who, by the government’s own account, had already spent or lost most of the money before he was ever charged. The same alert directs RentDue Capital investors who haven’t yet reported their losses to the FBI’s online victim intake form, since any future recovery effort depends on the government first knowing who is owed money and how much.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
More Financial Reading
