Delray woman sentenced for lying about fugitive ex-hubby

No jail for Cecily Sturge, who rented condo for ‘brother.’

WEST PALM BEACH — A 70-year-old Delray Beach woman who rented a condominium for her ex-husband, claiming he was her brother and a retired paleontologist, has admitted she was trying to help her former spouse evade capture in connection with multimillion-dollar fraud schemes.

Cecily Sturge on Monday was sentenced to a year’s probation on a charge of making materially false statements to a federal agent about the whereabouts of her ex-husband, Scott Wolas. A disbarred attorney, Wolas was on the lam for 20 years before he was arrested in April 2017 in the Delray condo Sturge rented for “her brother.”

A federal judge in Boston ordered Sturge to perform four hours of community service each week during her yearlong probation. She was also ordered to pay a $1,000 fine.

While Sturge divorced Wolas in Palm Beach County Circuit Court in 2001, she remained in contact with him, federal agents said. Cellphone records showed she frequently called a number Wolas was known to use.

Further, after she filed court papers to get her hands on Wolas’ $647,000 retirement account from his former New York law firm, surveillance video showed them together at a bank where documents she needed were notarized, federal officials said.

Wolas, 68, was arrested on charges in connection with a $1.7 million real estate investment scheme in Quincy, Mass. But, before he defrauded investors in Quincy using the name Eugene Grathwohl, he was wanted in New York in connection with what federal agents called a $100 million liquor-trading Ponzi scheme. He disappeared after he was indicted in New York in 1997, agents said.

Wolas is awaiting trial in Massachusetts. If convicted, he faces a possible 20 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.