Dan strader

Daniel Strader, who carried out one of the largest financial fraud schemes in Polk County history, has left prison after 26 years.

LAKELAND — Convicted embezzler Daniel Strader is challenging the loss of 15 years of gain time that was canceled by the Florida Department of Corrections.

The former president of Interstate Financial Services was convicted on counts of theft, conspiracy, securities fraud and racketeering. Confederate monument: Group asks U. Supreme Court to consider monument suit against Lakeland. Strader, then 37, received a sentence of 45 years in prison. His case received widespread coverage, in part because he was the son of the late Karl Strader, then pastor of the defunct Carpenters Home Church in Lakeland.

The Ledger has been unable to reach him. During his trial, Daniel Strader claimed he had been deceived by his business partner, Gary Pernice, an Atlanta lawyer who was later disbarred. But Strader refused to confess. Retired Judge Bob Doyel, who presided over the case, told The Ledger that Strader's insistence that he had done nothing wrong figured into the long sentence he imposed.

Doyel said he calculated the sentence so that Strader would not leave prison until he was about the same age as his victims. He ended up serving 26 years through a variety of sentence reduction practices employed by the Department of Corrections, primarily gain time and provisional credits.

Daniel Strader, who carried out one of the largest financial fraud schemes in Polk County history, has left prison after 26 years.

Beginning in , Strader received reductions of as many as 25 days for each month he served. He had no disciplinary actions while in prison, according to DOC records. Strader remains on probation, as required by terms of his sentence, and must periodically meet with a probation officer.