Pyramid-Scheme Leader Gets Probation, Fine

One of the leaders of a $12-million pyramid scheme that targeted women was ordered to pay $25,000 in penalties, spend three years on probation and perform more than 500 hours of community service after pleading no contest to organizing the scheme.

Cheryl Bean was a leader in the Women Helping Women scheme, which hosted invitation-only “birthday parties” that promised to pay a “birthday girl” $40,000 after her investment of $5,000. Some lucky women received the payoff, but the party never came for many more who invested before the scheme ended last fall with the arrests of a dozen women.

Bean, of Fair Oaks, was ordered to pay $15,000 to a restitution fund and $10,000 to a charity fund and to perform 540 hours of community service after her no contest plea to a felony charge of organizing an endless chain.