Victims of real estate investment scam to share nearly $900K

BOSTON (AP) — Nearly $900,000 in assets forfeited by a man who spent 20 years as a fugitive after he was charged with fraud and grand larceny in New York, and who for years lived under an assumed name in a Boston suburb, will be distributed to the victims of a real estate investment scam he ran, prosecutors said.

Scott Wolas, who had been a fugitive since 1997, was arrested in April 2017 and convicted in Boston federal court the following year on charges of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, misuse of a Social Security number and tax evasion.

The charges were in connection with a nearly $2 million real estate investment fraud scheme he operated while living in Quincy under the alias Eugene Grathwohl, federal prosecutors said in a statement Thursday.

He was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison and ordered to pay over $1.9 million in restitution to his victims, more than $300,000 to the Internal Revenue Service, and $70,000 to Social Security and Medicare.

Using the alias, Wolas collected the money from at least 24 people, purportedly for a beachfront redevelopment project in Quincy. But he actually used investor money mostly on personal expenses, prosecutors said.

Much of the restitution money came from Wolas’ retirement account from the law firm where he worked prior to being indicted in 1997 in New York, and which he had tried to transfer to his ex-wife, with whom he was still in contact.

His ex-wife in 2018 was sentenced to a year of probation after pleading guilty to lying to authorities by saying she had not had contact with Wolas for 15 years.

“My office will diligently pursue financial recovery for our crime victims — even years after someone has been convicted and sentenced, we will continue our pursuit,” U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Rachael Rollins said in a statement. “These ill-gotten gains have finally been recovered and our efforts send an important message that crime does not pay.”