(ChicagoTribune) - Chicago wine enthusiasts who thought they were buying wine futures at an incredible price were instead financing a 66-year-old California man's penchant for fast cars, women and golf.

By the time Fox Ortega Enterprises — which operated as now-defunct Berkeley, Calif., wine retailer Premier Cru — filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in January, thousands of customers had paid more than $45 million for wine they never received, according to court documents. The bankruptcy filing listed more than 250 Illinois residents owed money, many of them from Chicago and the North Shore.

After an FBI investigation, John E. Fox, 66, president of the company, was charged in June with a single count of wire fraud and pleaded guilty this month. He faces at least 6-1/2 years in prison and tens of millions of dollars in restitution when he's sentenced in December.

Called a Ponzi scheme by federal prosecutors, Fox's business took customer orders for wine futures — a common way for connoisseurs to procure potentially rare wine for a bargain price before it arrives on the marketplace — but for the most part, didn't fulfill them. It was one of the largest wine fraud cases in history, according to industry insiders, and cost some Chicagoans hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"I knew the prices were too good to be true but I said, OK, I'll roll the dice," said Mike Matonte, who works as store manager of Vin Chicago's city location, and personally lost about $700 in the scheme.

Matonte was relatively fortunate. Another Chicagoan was owed $250,000, according to the bankruptcy filing that includes more than a thousand pages of creditors. The big spender couldn't be reached for comment.

Instead of paying suppliers for wine, Fox embezzled money from Premier Cru business accounts to pay personal expenses, including his wife's credit card bill, his daughter's college tuition, membership to two private golf clubs, and the purchase or lease of cars "including Corvettes, Ferraris, a Maserati, and various Mercedes-Benzes," according to the plea agreement.