A United States Naval Academy grad was indicted Tuesday in a Manhattan court for allegedly operating a $1.2 million Ponzi scheme to fund his lavish lifestyle – including $10,000 for a dating service and rent for his swanky Upper West Side pad overlooking Central Park.
Honorably discharged vet Bryan Caisse, 50, solicited over $1 million from more than 20 friends and former classmates to launch a bogus hedge fund in April 2008, prosecutors said in Manhattan Supreme Court.
But the greedy sailor spent every penny of the ill-gotten gains on personal expenses like paying off his American Express card, tuition fees for his teenage daughter’s private school and upscale restaurant tabs, prosecutors allege.
Some investors who asked for their money back were repaid with funds from new investors, said Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Sean Pippen.
Other investors faced a stream of bizarre excuses when they tried to collect their cash.
“Bernie Madoff ruined everything,” Caisse told one disgruntled investor, according to Pippen. “He told one person he did not remember taking any money because he had a concussion.”
Caisse tried to keep angry investors at bay in 2011 by pretending that he’d been in a horrific car accident and suffered brain damage and a broken hip.
He even assumed the identity of two fictitious female assistants who claimed in emails that he was too ill to manage his own business affairs and had hired them to repay the debts he owed.
“The defendant was lucid enough to create fake people and engage in lengthy back and forth discussions with victims, continually asking for wiring instructions, continually saying checks were mailed, that someone the defendant knew died, that the defendant was in the hospital, that the checks got lost in the mail, and so on,” Pippen told Justice Richard Carruthers.
“When it came to taking and spending money, the defendant was fine. When it came to paying it back, he was helplessly and horribly bedridden.”
Caisse even charged up his mom’s American Express card and stuck her with the balance.
He pleaded not guilty to grand larceny raps at his arraignment Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Prosecutors argued that Caisse shouldn’t be granted bail because he fled to Colombia last October and issued a warrant for his arrest. Authorities nabbed him in a Bogota airport last weekend.
Agents discovered numerous suicide notes in his luggage and he is currently on suicide watch.
Caisse’s defense lawyer Bradley Simon insisted his client didn’t flee but was in Colombia for a consulting job and had every intention of turning himself in.
Simon also denied the Ponzi scheme accusations. “These were loans,” said Simon. “He’s always acknowledged his obligations to repay them.”
Carruthers set bail at a whopping $3 million.
Several of the alleged victims are trying to help the single father post bail, prosecutors said.