By Lukas I. Alpert
Thomas Renison admitted fleecing former shoppers even after being barred from funding work following a earlier phony Hungarian on line casino scheme.
A lot of Thomas Renison’s shoppers stated they trusted him unequivocally. It turned out to be their largest mistake.
The previous-Connecticut funding advisor was sentenced final week to 4 years in jail for his position in working a Ponzi scheme that fleeced his mostly-elderly shoppers out of $6 million in retirement financial savings.
Renison, 69, of South Glastonbury, Conn., admitted taking lots of his former shoppers into investing, regardless of having been barred from working in monetary providers by the Securities and Trade Fee for his position in a previous scheme involving a bogus Hungarian on line casino challenge.
Renison pleaded responsible in 2020 to working the Ponzi scheme together with his confederate, Timothy Allcott, of Peabody, Mass. Alcott was additionally sentenced final week to 2 1/2 years in jail. Each males have been ordered to pay over $6 million in restitution, in response to federal prosecutors.
Between 2015 and 2018, prosecutors accused Renison of convincing 15 shoppers from his former funding enterprise, the place he largely bought insurance coverage insurance policies and suggested on retirement methods, to empty out their financial savings and pour it right into a fund he and Alcott had launched referred to as ARO Fairness LLC.
The fund purportedly invested in small companies within the Northeast, and promised to pay a assured 8%-12% annual return. Renison argued that this was a greater return than his former clients have been getting from their different investments.
However prosecutors say that the fund was a fraud, dropping massive quantities of cash on the investments it did make, whereas paying massive commissions to Renison, an enormous wage to Allcott and funds to their youngsters. The remainder was used to pay dividends to earlier traders. In all, about $5 million disappeared, prosecutors stated.
Messages left with attorneys for Renison and Allcott weren’t instantly returned.
Relations of those that have been duped, a number of of whom have since handed away, say Renison was little greater than a snake-oil salesman, who took benefit of older individuals who trusted him.
“If my late father had by no means met Tom Renison, he may have lived the final a number of years of his life as he had deliberate — financially unbiased and comparatively stress-free. As an alternative, the final a number of years of his life have been stuffed with nothing however fear, stress and humiliation,” the son of 1 unnamed sufferer who misplaced his whole $1.3 million nest egg, wrote in a letter to the decide.
“One of the crucial infuriating elements of this complete ordeal is that my father by no means bought to get pleasure from HIS cash,” the son wrote. “It is tragic that the one individuals who bought to get pleasure from my father’s cash have been Tom Renison, Timothy Alcott, and THEIR households.”
Prosecutors say Renison and Alcott had purposely structured ARO Fairness to cover the truth that Renison was a 50% proprietor, on condition that he had beforehand been barred by the SEC and authorities in Maine from working in monetary providers as a consequence of his position in a previous rip-off.
In that case, Renison was charged in 2011, together with Pete DiRosa, the previous mayor of Manchester, Connecticut, of stealing $600,000 from a retiree purportedly to assist construct a on line casino and resort in Hungary.
Prosecutors finally dropped the felony prices towards Renison in that case, though the SEC issued a lifetime ban towards him. DiRosa pleaded responsible and served 4 years in jail.
-Lukas I. Alpert
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05-08-23 1122ET
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