A San Fernando Valley man who uses the surname of a dynasty that once ruled Austria and was about to be sentenced for having swindled elderly church parishioners and others in a Ponzi scheme that took in at least $5.9 million told the judge Friday he wished to withdraw his guilty plea.
Sylvein William Maximilian D’Habsburg XVII, 49, of West Hills, pleaded guilty in downtown Los Angeles in February 2025 to one federal count of wire fraud and faces a years-long prison sentence.
As proceedings were getting underway Friday, D’Habsburg announced he wanted to withdraw his plea. The hearing was reset for March 20.
The standards for allowing a defendant to retract a guilty plea in federal court are high. For example, the defendant must demonstrate that the plea was entered under pressure, based on incorrect advice or that new evidence has emerged.
According to his plea agreement, from at least 2018 to 2023, D’Habsburg hired recruiters to identify potential investors for his two companies, Wild Rabbit Technologies LLC and BAI Intelligence LLC, targeting the local Filipino community, including elderly church parishioners.
D’Habsburg had his name legally changed to resemble that of the famous European family and is not a descendant of nobility, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office told City News Service.
The House of Habsburg-Lorraine is the former royal house of the defunct Austro-Hungarian thrones.
At investment presentations, D’Habsburg — who was known as “Syl” — claimed he had artificial intelligence technology that could predict the future and detect a COVID-19 infection based solely on a video recording, among other things, court papers show.
Prosecutors are asking for a sentence of 12 years and seven months behind bars and full restitution payments to victims. In his sentencing memorandum, D’Habsburg argues for time already served so he can be free “to continue his work in bringing his technology to the marketplace, therefore, generating income and a source of restitution payments.”
Prosecutors say he falsely claimed to potential investors that he had received about $500 million in investments for his companies from retired professional athletes and other well-known people, including Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak, and had been consulted about his AI technology by Hillary Clinton and other prior U.S. Secretaries of State.
He promised potential investors that he would use their funds to hire personnel and obtain patents.
However, D’Habsburg used victims’ money to purchase luxury cars, such as a 1933 Rolls Royce Phantom II Continental Sedanca de Ville by Barker, and rare antiques, including a pair of Italian carved giltwood throne armchairs from the 1800s, prosecutors said.
In his sentencing papers, D’Habsburg asserts that he purchased vintage cars, artwork, antiques and other “collectables” not for his own use but for display in projected AI offices around the world.
“Like Meta and Google, all tech companies have a signature and Mr. D’Habsburg wanted his company’s signature to be the Collectables, symbolizing elegance, and a connection to the old world as the world transitions to the future,” his attorneys wrote. “The Collectables were to be placed as viewing pieces in the AI lobby and office spaces.”
As a result of his scheme, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said, D’Habsburg caused his victims a total of more than $5.9 million in losses.
Typical among victims is a San Diego County couple who lost their retirement savings of $219,605 in the defendant’s AI technology scam.
“I had one dream for my parents, and that was to help retire them,” a daughter of the couple wrote in a victim impact statement filed in L.A. federal court. “But instead, (D’Habsburg) took away their retirement. I am so grieved and saddened by this whole situation. My hope now is that justice would be served, not only for my whole family, but for every single individual affected by Syl’s deceptive scheme.”
Prosecutors said that even after pleading guilty, D’Habsburg continued attempting to lure victims, and engaged in witness tampering by instructing existing victims not to share his communications without first speaking to him or his team.