A Florida man was charged with impersonating bigwigs at two New York-based investment companies — including a billionaire founder — and hoodwinking executives there into funding probes he made up of links between the firms and Jeffrey Epstein.
(Bloomberg) — A Florida man was charged with impersonating bigwigs at two New York-based investment companies — including a billionaire founder — and hoodwinking executives there into funding probes he made up of links between the firms and Jeffrey Epstein.
The name of the notorious financier, who died in 2019 facing sex trafficking charges, and the impersonation appear to have been enough to send the firms scurrying. Portfolio companies of the firms wired hundreds of thousands of dollars into at least one account controlled by the impostor, prosecutors alleged in a criminal complaint unsealed on Friday.
Stranger still, the guy had tried something similar before, and been sentenced to almost six years in prison for it.
Read the Justice Department announcement here
On Thursday, authorities arrested Jonathan Ghertler, 60, on charges including fraud and identity theft. Federal prosecutors in New York allege he posed as the general counsel of an unidentified private equity firm and the founder of an unnamed investment firm and caused their portfolio companies to collectively pay more than $1 million to fund the fictional investigations of connections to Epstein.
An attorney for Ghertler, Michael Nielsen, didn’t respond to a message seeking comment on the charges.
Fake Billionaire
Posing as the billionaire founder, the US alleges, Ghertler contacted the chief executive officer of one of the firm’s portfolio companies in May 2021, saying he needed the company to pay a private investigator “examining issues related to his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.”
The company then made more than $800,000 in payments to a person named “Edward Molina,” which were deposited in at least one account linked to Ghertler, prosecutors say.
Ghertler — who the US claims also tried the scam, unsuccessfully, on two other portfolio companies of the firm — has undertaken similar schemes before. He was charged by the same prosecutors’ office in New York in 2001 with conning six of the largest US law firms into paying about $200,000 by posing as a partner with those firms, and was sentenced to 71 months in prison.
Read More: Florida Man Who Swindled Top Law Firms Sentenced to 71 Months
Ghertler, of Orlando, is also accused in the current case of posing as the chairman of a global law firm earlier this month on calls with agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Prosecutors say he tried to convince the FBI that no crime had been committed.
‘Made Whole’
According to the US, he told them the company “had been defrauded in a scheme related to an investigation into the billionaire founder’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, but chose not to reach out to law enforcement about the fraud” because it had been “made whole” by the fraudster.
Ghertler is charged with one count of wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of making false statements, and faces as many as 20 years in prison if convicted.
The case is US v. Ghertler, 23-mj-1170, US District Court, Middle District of Florida.
–With assistance from Allison McNeely.
(Adds details of the alleged scheme in second and third sections.)
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