Reed Slatkin

On June 23, 2015, journalist Tony Ortega reported on his website that Slatkin had died from a heart attack. Ortega said that he had confirmation of Slatkin's death from Slatkin's ex-wife.

In July 2013, he was released from a halfway house in Long Beach, California.

In February 2008, the television show American Greed featured the Slatkin case, which it titled "Stealing $$$ from Scientologists".

Slatkin pleaded guilty to mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and obstruction of justice and on September 2, 2003, he was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison.

From 1986 to 2001, Slatkin raised approximately $593 million from about 800 wealthy investors. Using the funds from later investors, he paid one group of early investors $279M on their original $128M investment, citing investment success without actually making most of the claimed investments. He also distributed millions in fees to associates as "consultants". He successfully sustained the scheme until 2001, when it was shut down by an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In May 2001, the SEC shut down Slatkin's scheme by filing an enforcement action and obtaining a temporary restraining order freezing his remaining assets. On the same day as the SEC action, the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed search warrants relating to Slatkin.

Slatkin had been an ordained Scientology minister since 1975. Around 1984 he changed from being a full-time minister to becoming a self-employed investor, and many of his investment clients and victims were also Scientologists.

Reed Eliot Slatkin (January 22, 1949 – June 23, 2015) was an initial investor and co-founder of EarthLink and the perpetrator of one of the largest Ponzi schemes in the United States since that conducted by Charles Ponzi himself.