SANDUSKY, Ohio — Ron and Sherri Wilson, former owners of Sierra Real Estate Services and the Hotel Lorraine are admitting their guilt on camera.
They say it was their actions and decisions that led to many losing money and tenants ending up on the street with nowhere to go.
"What we're waiting on right now is the inevitable. It's a letter from the Bureau of Prisons telling us when and where to report," Ron Wilson said.
Ron Wilson will be serving 90 months for embezzlement and a variety of mail and wire fraud charges. His wife Sherri will be serving 45 months.
Both pleaded guilty to the charges presented against them in federal court.
The Wilsons co-owned Sierra Real Estate Services, a rapidly growing real estate investment company that had investors from around the world and operated in 5 states, until an FBI investigation led to charges against them. The crimes they committed caused some investors to lose everything.
"I know a few of them, because the prosecutor said, they lost their kids's college funds, their whole life savings. And, that is horrible," Sherri Wilson said.
The losses amounted to millions of dollars, according to court filings.
The Wilsons acknowledge they should've shut down their company at the first sign that things were going wrong. Instead, Ron Wilson began inappropriately using the money of his investors to make up for the error in the books.
"That was an illegal decision... and it's something I openly admit that I did," Ron Wilson said.
Ron Wilson says he still doesn't know where the discrepancy in the company's books originated.
"I wish that I would've been able to have found the money that had been overspent. To this day, I still can't answer that question. When the FBI raided us, they took every single record that we had," Ron Wilson explained.
WTOL reporter Emma Henderson has been covering the story of one of their properties, the Hotel Lorraine, since last October. The Hotel Lorraine was shut down due to financial issues and poor living conditions.
The closure of the Hotel Lorraine was considered the largest displacement of tenants in Toledo in three years.
The hotel was home for dozens of long-term tenants. Many were low income and were given short notice to vacate the building.
"I cried. I couldn't hug them. I couldn't help them. I couldn't stop it. It broke my heart," Sherri Wilson said. "I knew a lot of them when it closed. A lot of them gave their last dollar - their last dollar - to the hotel. And, they weren't even warned they were being kicked out."
They believe other people they worked with need to own up to their wrong-doings, too.
"I'm not going to fight it because I deserve something, and if that's what it is and that's what the victims want, then who am I at this point to step forward and tell them they are wrong?" Sherri Wilson said.
Now, the Wilsons leave a trail of crumbling, condemned buildings and missing money in their wake as they wait to face the inevitable.