PHILADELPHIA — With more than $32 million still owed to claimants impacted by a Ponzi scheme involving Bentley Financial Services, a last minute appeal by some of the defendants could stall distribution.

In 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against Bentley and Entrust Group alleging that the defendants claimed to be selling bank-issued, federally insured certificates of deposits that were actually uninsured securities. Hundreds of credit unions, banks and individuals invested more than $370 million with the defendants. Since then, Peninsula Bank, Joseph Marzouca and Ted Benghiat, Southeastern Securities, Inc. and SFG Financial Services, Inc. have been named as defendants. Robert Bentley, who ran Bentley Financial, pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud and one count of bank bribery, is currently serving five years in prison and was ordered to pay $3.25 million in fines.

In June 2006, a federal jury in Philadelphia returned verdicts against Peninsula and Benghiat for damages totaling more than $32 million. The defendants appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which issued a March 20 for the appellants and David Marion, the court-appointed receiver with law firm Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads LLP, to file briefs on the appeal. A final consolidated reply to the Third Circuit is due from the receiver by July 16.