The Deal
Sunday, November 8, 
5:07 am

Three fraudsters: One arrested, one on the lam, one under the weather

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handcuffs.jpgAlleged financial schemers Marcus Schrenker, the financial adviser accused of defrauding investors through three of his companies, and Robert Jaffe, a Bernard Madoff associate, have both been found, but  Raoul Weil, a former UBS employee accused of facilitating tax evasion, remains on the lam.

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Schrenker tried to fake his death over the weekend by bailing out of his plane over Alabama, (the plane crashed in a Florida swamp), then getting a lift from a policeman, who thought he was a lost fisherman. When the officer suspected something amiss, Schrenker took off on a stashed red motorcycle.

Schrenker had been missing since Sunday, when he flew from Anderson, Ind., bound for Destin, Fla. He radioed that his plane's windshield had imploded and that his face was covered with blood. Military jets were dispatched to intercept the plane and found the door open, the cockpit dark. Schrenker was picked up in northern Florida late Tuesday after broadcast reports say he e-mailed a family member from a campground.

Clients of his companies Heritage Wealth Management, Heritage Insurance Services and Icon Wealth Management had alleged that he had stolen millions of dollars they gave him to invest. Schrenker's wife also had filed for divorce, alleging that he was having an affair.

While Schrenker's attempt was far more creative than convicted fraudster hedge fund manager Sam Israel III's efforts to flee last summer, his days on the lam certainly didn't last as long as Israel's three weeks. Israel had parked his SUV on the Bear Mountain Bridge in upstate New York with the words "Suicide is painless" written on the car. He then made his way to a hidden RV, where he lived for a few weeks, before he turned himself in to authorities in western Massachusetts.

However, Israel's record could be broken by Weil. A U.S. court in Florida declared Weil, the former head of UBS' global wealth management and business banking division, a "fugitive" Tuesday after he failed to turn up for a hearing. In a statement issued late on Tuesday, James Cohn, a U.S District judge in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., declared that the "Clerk of Court shall remove the Defendant from the Court's pending case list and shall place the defendant on the clerk's fugitive list."

Last November, Weil was indicted for helping American clients of UBS evade tax authorities by hiding their money offshore. Following an investigation that had begun in 2002, a federal grand jury then charged Weil with "conspiring with other executives, managers, private bankers and clients of the banking firm to defraud the U.S."

Meanwhile Jaffe, the Madoff middleman and bon vivant from Palm Beach, Fla., who failed to show up at a meeting with Massachusetts regulators on Tuesday, is supposedly "under a doctor's care," the Boston Globe reports. Jaffe's spokesman, Elliot Sloane, told the paper that Jaffe's condition was not serious, but that his lawyers had made Secretary of State William F. Galvin aware Jaffe would not appear.

Brian McNiff, a spokesman for Galvin, said, "The Securities Division is preparing to enforce the subpoena and to take all other necessary actions to protect Massachusetts investors."

Meanwhile, the Palm Beach rumor mill says the multimillionaire had made a big show recently of selling his tuxedos and jackets to a consignment shop. No word on whether he exchanged the formal wear for a tent, sleeping bag and backpack. - Donna Block




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