If Patrick had only classified his investment thing as a managed hedge/mutual fund, with returns based on his investment skills as opposed to fixed interest "savings account" style returns, none of this would have been a problem. Losses would have had to be taken by the customers instead of Patrick, and his returns would have been consistent with the average hedge fund (lesson: don't invest in hedge funds, people. You'll save time by just flushing your money down the toilet).
I 100% agree. But I don't think this is because Patrick was scamming, I think it was because Patrick was naive. This should have been just as obvious to Patrick's customers as it was to Patrick. Having been there, I can assure you that it certainly seemed that both sides were equally deluded and both sides were equally willfully blind.
I don't have any problem with foolish Patrick sharing his losses with his foolish customers. Hopefully, they will all learn a lesson. Some of his customers did make outrageous profits and it's not at all unfair for them to bear some of the losses.