LITH "Puffer Fish Guy" Gets Eight Year Sentence

A Rockford federal judge Monday sentenced a Lake in the Hills man to serve almost eight years in prison Monday for wire fraud and possession of a deadly fish poison.  But Judge Frederick Kapala credited 39-year old Edward F. Bachner, IV, with having already served almost four years in custody since federal, state and local law enforcement agents swooped down on his McKenzie Drive home in 2008.

Bachner pleaded guilty more than a year ago to a scheme to buy and collect on a $20 million life insurance policy on a person never named in court but thought to have been his wife. Bachner also admitted to posing as “Dr. Edmund Backer” and obtaining mail-order TTX, a deadly neurotoxin to use as a murder weapon.

Kapala also ordered Bachman to serve five years' concurrent imprisonment for filing a false income tax claim and ordered him to pay $512,000 restitution.

Over the past 4 years some 20 different federal, state and local law enforcement agencies have been involved in investigating the Lake in the Hills "Puffer Fish Guy" case according to  Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark T. Karner.