Conman accused of piloting new fraud

$3M charter flight scheme alleged

The first time Robert Charles “Chas” Brady got in legal trouble, prosecutors said his exploits reminded them of the Leonardo DiCaprio character in the movie “Catch Me If You Can” — the true-life tale of a young man who committed fraud while posing as a lawyer and pilot.

Brady rubbed shoulders with Broward’s political elite 10 years ago when he pretended to be an attorney and Harvard Law graduate. He was in his mid-20s.

When the jig was up, he was sentenced to 2 ½ years in state prison after pleading no contest to charges of fraud, forgery,

grand theft and practicing law without a license.

He got out of prison in late 2009. Federal prosecutors now say the convicted felon started committing even bigger crimes in 2012 while he was still on probation for the state case.

Brady trained to be a pilot and started using his new skill to orchestrate a $3 million fraud based in Broward and Palm Beach counties that went on until his arrest earlier this month, they said.

The new fraud involved flying on-demand commercial charter flights for wealthy clients and providing flight instruction for student pilots, neither of which Brady or his Boca Ratonbased company, Beach Aviation, were authorized to do, prosecutors said.

Brady advertised charter flights and flying lessons and sold discount Groupon offers online, they said. He’s also accused of flying a turbojet-powered Eclipse 500 aircraft as pilot-in-command, pretending to be a certified flight instructor and concealing from customers that the FAA had not qualified him or his company to do any of this.

Brady is an extremely convincing smooth talker, said Bill Christiansen, whose Tulsa-based aviation company leased two Cessna 172 aircraft to Brady’s business at the Boca Raton Airport.

“He duped me, I have to tell you,” Christiansen said in an interview. “He’s just this smooth-talking guy and he has a justification for everything. He calls himself Captain Brady and the longer you know him, the more you realize he’s so full of BS.”

Christiansen learned of Brady’s arrest this week just as he was gearing up to report some of his own concerns to federal investigators, he said. Brady was misreporting how much he was using the leased planes, underpaying Christiansen by an estimated $30,000 and keeping funds from an insurance check that was supposed to be used for repairs, he said.

Brady flew passengers in exchange for money while his pilot’s license was revoked, according to court testimony. The flights took off and landed all over Florida and in the Bahamas.

In July, “Captain” Brady — dressed in a pilot’s uniform of a white shirt and white shorts — took a TV news crew from Palm Beach County for a flight and offered expert advice for a story on airplane safety, video shows.

In a bizarre side plot that doesn’t appear to involve any criminal allegations, the east African Republic of Burundi made Brady an “honorary consul” in 2016, his attorney said. Brady’s diplomatic role was intended to help student pilots from Burundi, which borders Rwanda and is one of the poorest countries in the world, to get training in the U.S., according to the defense.

Earlier this month, Brady was indicted on 56 federal charges of wire fraud, operating as a pilot without the proper certification and altering or falsifying records in a federal investigation. Most of the charges carry maximum penalties of 20 years in federal prison.

Attorney Jim Lewis said Brady plans to go to trial on the charges early next year. He questioned why federal prosecutors filed dozens of charges against Brady.

“I think they looked at his past and tried to make a mountain out of a molehill,” Lewis said. “He’s a very enterprising young man. He’s not a danger to anybody. He never crashed a plane.”

The defense’s position is that many of the charges are based on alleged technical violations and misunderstandings about Brady’s license and certifications, Lewis said.

“Nobody lost any money — he actually took the people on the charter flights they paid for and every student who paid got their classes,” Lewis said. “They say he was piloting a plane he wasn’t licensed to fly. He thought he was, but the FAA definitely thought he wasn’t.”

FAA records show Brady’s pilot’s license was suspended and revoked in 2016 for issues linked to the federal criminal investigation. Lewis said his client was later issued a student pilot license and was allowed to fly with another pilot present. Felons are not prohibited from applying for an airman’s certificate, according to the FAA.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Behnke, who is handling the case, declined to comment on the indictment.

But David Schulson, the Broward prosecutor who handled the state case that sent Brady to prison in 2008, said that, based on the federal indictment, Brady apparently squandered the chance to rehabilitate himself and wasted the opportunity to channel his intellect in legitimate endeavors.

“He always reminded me of the Leonardo DiCaprio character in the movie ‘Catch Me If You Can,’” Schulson said.

“He’s very articulate, very bright. He was a man about town. This guy could just walk in and people just believed him. They never questioned him or his qualifications.”

Brady, now 36, lives in Fort Lauderdale and owns a condo in Delray Beach. He told court officials he’s single and has no children and listed his only major assets as a 2016 Chevrolet Silverado and a motorcycle.

He will remain jailed in Palm Beach County because he is a danger to the community, a judge ruled this week. The judge cited Brady’s past conviction for posing as an attorney and said the evidence against him in the new case is “strong.”

“[Brady] continues to put others, who put trust in him, at risk of significant harm,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Dave Lee Brannon wrote in his order. “[He] has a history of acting as if he is not bound by the rules of professional conduct. Aviation safety depends upon honest compliance with a myriad of regulations. The court has no confidence in defendant's ability to comply with conditions that will keep the community safe.”

In the state fraud case, Brady preyed on wellheeled people he met through his Republican contacts and conned them into fraudulent real estate deals they thought were being handled by a qualified, Harvard-educated attorney.

In fact, Brady who was born in Palm Beach County and attended Fort Lauderdale High School, had no college degree.

Brady met some of his contacts when he hung out at the law firm of his stepfather, James Eddy, a retired attorney and former Republican state representative who lives in Fort Lauderdale. Eddy, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, is listed on state records as a managing member of Beach Aviation.

Brady also befriended Dr. Zachariah P. Zachariah, a cardiologist and big-time fundraiser for Republican candidates. He was invited to parties at Zachariah’s home and on his yacht, which led to introductions to developers, mortgage brokers and politicians, including Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson in 2007.

Brady served time for tricking some of them into thinking he was a lawyer and defrauding several of them in business and real estate transactions. He was ordered to pay $115,000 in restitution.

He briefly ran for political office against then-commissioner Gloria Katz for Fort Lauderdale City Commission in 2002 but dropped out before the election.

At the time, he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel: “People would say, 'Oh, you're just young. You don't know what's going on.' But I would say I have two bachelor's degrees and I'm a lobbyist. I think I know a little.”

Brady was later appointed to a city of Fort Lauderdale community advisory board, by Katz, serving as chairman and stating that he was one of three attorneys on the board, state court records show.

Broward County Commissioner Steve Geller, a former state senator who is also an attorney, said that when the two first met about 15 years ago, Brady told him he was attending Harvard Law school and his business card and email address all implied he was an attorney or highly qualified expert on land use law.

“I guess that’s part of being a successful conman — you have to be well-spoken and likable and he’s wellspoken and likable,” said Geller. “He knew all the intricate legal terms that laymen wouldn’t know.”

Geller was stunned when he discovered, in 2005, that Brady had forged Geller’s signature on a supposed $19 million deal to sell a Pompano Beach shopping plaza to one of the victims in the old fraud case that eventually sent Brady to state prison. The signature appeared to have been cut and pasted from a legitimate deal.

Geller said he hasn’t seen Brady in many years and the last he heard was that Brady planned to open a flight school.

“What annoys me most about Chas is seeing what a waste of potential talent there was there,” said Geller. “He’s smooth, he speaks well. He’d be a huge success if he’d follow the rules.”

Robert Charles “Chas” Brady