2 convicted of investment fraud schemes
Reinhart, Rodriguez defrauded victims of $169K, other property
WOBURN >> A more than decade-old case concluded in Middlesex Superior Court last month with the conviction of two people, including a Wilmington native, who defrauded multiple victims of roughly $169,000 and other property in connection with a string of investment scams.
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a press release on Thursday that Robert Ross Reinhart and Clarissa Rodriguez will spend time in prison due to the string of schemes they carried out from 2007 through 2013.
According to Ryan, Reinhart, a native of Wilmington, and Rodriguez, of Arlington, “presented themselves as financially savvy, sophisticated, experienced and very successful people” able to provide investment advice and assistance to others on various projects. The projects included plans to develop property and to promote and market inventions. Rodriguez and Reinhart “failed to deliver, and instead left the victims bereft of their assets,” Ryan said.
Some of the scams included:
• Charging two investors $55,000 for marketing advice and product research for two separate products that were never delivered.
• Convincing a woman to drain the bank accounts she shared with her husband and held for her 13-year-old daughter so Reinhart could invest the cash. Reinhart convinced the victim to obtain more cash for him to invest by refinancing her paid-off automobile. The money was never actually invested. Reinhart and Rodriguez additionally stole the woman’s wedding jewelry under the guise of having it appraised and safeguarded. Reinhart then pawned the jewelry for $125.
• Reinhart solicited donations to support a bogus organization, titled “Missing Persons Bureau, Special Investigations Unit,” alleged to have been doing business in Washington, D.C. The unit would supposedly attempt to solve the 1977 disappearance of a 14-year-old girl from Townsend, Deborah Ann Quimby. During the scheme, Reinhart solicited a contribution from the mother of the missing girl and attempted to convince the town to pay over $11,000 in phone expenses for his fake investigation.
Ryan’s office stated that in October 2013, a branch manager of Citizens Bank in Wilmington contacted police to report his belief that a customer was the victim
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