Con man pleads guilty to $1.7M fraud scheme
Wolas, 69, was on the run for 20 years using fake names.
DELRAY BEACH — Scott J. Wolas appeared in federal court Friday in Boston after he was arrested in Delray Beach in April 2017 for allegedly running a $1.7 million real estate investment fraud scheme.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, Wolas, 69, pleaded guilty to seven counts of wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, misuse of a social security number and tax evasion.
A U.S. district court judge scheduled his sentencing for Oct. 2.
Wolas, who went by many names, ended 20 years on the lam with his arrest in Delray Beach.
Authorities say Wolas took more than $100 million from investors in New York in the 1990s using a liquor-trading Ponzi scheme. He also ripped off about 16 people in Massachusetts of $1.7 million — including an ex-girlfriend. He was also active in Florida, specializing in false identities.
The alleged scam included the redevelopment of the Beachcomber, a longtime bar and music venue on Wollaston Beach in the Boston suburb of Quincy, into condominiums and a “boutique” restaurant. Wolas, then posing as Eugene Grathwohl, failed to show up at the closing, disappearing with the money.
“I’m so happy that he got caught. He’s going to now be accountable for what he did,” Ben Porter, who lost $50,000 in the alleged scheme, told Boston CBS affiliate WBZ-TV after the arrest.
Besides Grathwohl, Wohl went by Frank Amolsch, Drew Prescott, Allen Lee Hengst and Robert Francis McDowell, police say. He told his girlfriend he needed to change his identity frequently because he once was in a “secret service” and was now in the witness protection program, according to a federal criminal complaint.
According to an affidavit by the FBI, Wolas has been working as Grathwohl, soliciting $1.5 million investments from 19 people in real estate projects. He used $98,000 to purchase stamp books and other collectible items. He also spent $50,000 dining out at restaurants and withdrew more than $600,000 in cash for unknown purposes, according to court documents.
At the time of his arrest, the real Grathwohl lived in Delray Beach, the criminal complaint said. He told the FBI he knew Wolas as the ex-husband of a friend of his and had even met the man who assumed his identity.
The aliases Wolas was using just before his arrest were Endicott Asquith and Cameron Sturge, the complaint said.