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Clarissa Rodriguez and Robert Ross Reinhart were convicted in Middlesex Superior Court of defrauding multiple victims of approximately $169,000 and other property over a six-year period. (Lowell Sun)
WOBURN — More than a decade of litigation ended last month in Middlesex Superior Court against two people, including a Wilmington native, who defrauded multiple victims of nearly $169,000 and other property in connection with a series of investment frauds. The trial concluded with a guilty verdict.
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a press release Thursday that Robert Ross Reinhart and Clarissa Rodriguez will spend time in prison for a series of conspiracies they carried out from 2007 to 2013.
Ryan said Reinhart, of Wilmington, and Rodriguez, of Arlington, are “financially savvy, sophisticated, experienced and highly successful individuals who can provide investment advice and assistance to others on a variety of projects.” He described himself as a person who The project included plans to develop the property, promote and market the invention. Rodriguez and Reinhart “failed to deliver and instead left the victim without property,” Ryan said.
Scams include:
• Billed two investors $55,000 for marketing advice and product research for two separate products that were never delivered.
• Convinced a woman to drain a bank account she shared with her husband and held for their 13-year-old daughter so Reinhardt could invest the cash. Reinhardt persuaded his victims to obtain more cash and invest it by refinancing their already paid off cars. That money was never actually invested. Reinhardt and Rodriguez also stole women’s wedding jewelry under the guise of identification and protection. Reinhardt then pawned the jewelry for $125.
• Reinhart solicited donations to support a fake organization called the Missing Persons Task Force, which allegedly operated out of Washington, DC. The organization was supposed to be trying to solve the 1977 disappearance of a 14-year-old girl. Townsend, Deborah Ann Quimby. In this scheme, Reinhart solicited donations from the missing girl’s mother and attempted to persuade the town to pay more than $11,000 in phone bills for a sham investigation.
Mr. Ryan’s office said that in October 2013, a Citizens Bank branch manager in Wilmington contacted police to report his belief that a customer was the victim of fraud by Mr. Reinhart. Reinhart was at the bank to allow “investors” to transfer deposits into accounts of a fake company he had set up into other accounts he controlled.
Wilmington police determined the transaction was suspicious and eventually arrested the person Rinehart had sent to the bank to withdraw the money. Prosecutors said Rinehart then went into hiding in New Hampshire.
The investigation, led by the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office and assisted by the FBI’s New England Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory and police in Wilmington and Chelmsford, where other investors were held, revealed that Rinehart This led to the arrest of Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Rodriguez. They were charged in Woburn District Court with multiple theft charges.
The investigation continued, and in late 2014, a Middlesex County grand jury indicted both men on these charges and related financial crimes.
“For years, they preyed on victims who trusted them and believed their business was legitimate,” Ryan said in a release Thursday. “Sadly, as we see in many fraud cases like this one, victims face very personal losses, such as inheritances, engagement rings, and even the theft of cash from a 13-year-old girl’s bank account. It remains covered.”
Rhinehart, who was 53 when he was charged in 2014, was found by a Middlesex Superior Court jury on 11 counts of theft over $250, two counts of attempted theft over $250, and one count of theft under $250. Convicted. He was also deemed a common and notorious thief and sentenced to eight to 10 years in prison, followed by three years of probation. Mr. Reinhardt was also ordered to repay $169,000 in restitution to his victims. His sentence will run consecutively with the one- to two-year prison sentence he was already serving for attempting to pay a witness $500 to influence his testimony.
Rodriguez, who was 48 years old when he was charged in 2014, was convicted of five counts of theft over $250. She was also considered a common and notorious thief, and she was sentenced to four to five years in state prison.
Follow Aaron Curtis @aselahcurtis on X (formerly Twitter)
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