Entertainment

Sprecher’s life after ‘Rebecca’

When news of the “Rebecca” scandal first broke, the sense around Broadway was that lead producer Ben Sprecher was either a criminal mastermind or a fool.

Well, the verdict’s in, and it’s time to fit Sprecher for his dunce cap.

On Tuesday federal authorities arrested Mark C. Hotton, a sleazy Long Island stockbroker, and charged him with defrauding Sprecher and the other producers of “Rebecca.” Hotton allegedly concocted phony investors and fake loans and managed to fleece Sprecher of $60,000 in fees and expenses.

Sprecher and his lawyer, Ron Russo, were doing victory laps yesterday, pointing out that Hotton’s arrest clearly proves Sprecher’s innocence.

Sprecher was “extremely gratified” that Hotton had been arrested, Russo told reporters. “This fraud did enormous damage to Broadway, and Ben Sprecher remains totally committed to bringing ‘Rebecca’ to New York.”

You’ve got to be kidding!

Who in their right mind is going to give money to a Broadway producer who was so easily duped?

After this fiasco, Sprecher won’t be able to raise a dime for Easter Seals, let alone a $12 million musical.

Let’s review the facts.

Sprecher was going to take $4.5 million from “Paul Abrams,” the phantom investor, but never bothered to meet him and later admitted he never even had a phone conversation with him.

“Someone is going to give you 35 percent of your capitalization, and you don’t want to meet him?” wonders a veteran producer, incredulous.

You don’t have to be Hercule Poirot to figure Paul Abrams never existed. I’ve seen investment papers for the show that list Abrams’ phone number and address in Australia. The phone number is a nonworking number, and if you do a Google search, the address is a park.

Sprecher says Hotton also allegedly told him that Abrams had an office in Johannesburg. One of Sprecher’s investors, who asked not to be identified, conducted his own investigation and was unable to turn up any Paul Abrams in Johannesburg.

Why didn’t Sprecher bother to do this due diligence himself?

I’d like to ask him, but his lawyer hasn’t returned my calls all week.

As for Mark C. Hotton, all you have to do is Google this clown, as I did when I was given his name two weeks ago, and what pops up are the words “fraud” and “bankruptcy.”

You can even bid for one of his yachts on a bankruptcy auction Web site.

The man should have his own Google alert: Steer clear!

Sprecher can’t pretend he wasn’t warned. A number of people involved in “Rebecca” say they checked Hotton out for themselves and waved red flags.

As I reported last week, Sprecher brushed aside their concerns.

Yesterday he told Bloomberg.com that he did, in fact, Google Hotton.

And yet he still went into business with the crook?

That should inspire investor confidence!

Sprecher has never been a major player on Broadway. He was for many years an off-Broadway landlord. When he did dabble on the Great White Way, the results were often pathetic — “Voices in the Dark” (64 performances), “Sly Fox” (173 performances) and the revival of “American Buffalo” (eight performances).

Sprecher also has the distinction of persuading the mighty Shubert Organization to build an off-Broadway theater on West 42nd Street. The company dropped something like $18 million into the theater, which has been booked about three times since it opened in 2002.

It’s called the Little Shubert Theater, but I think it should be rechristened the Ben Sprecher Center for the Performing Arts.

Sprecher’s reputation is such that he was unable to raise money from many of the usual sources for “Rebecca.” As a result, he lined up some rather oddball angels, including that fabulous New Jersey singing lawyer, Tony Fusco.

Since I mentioned Fusco in a column three weeks ago, his YouTube music promo has been viewed more than 1,000 times.

He’s now available for bar mitzvahs.

Sprecher, as Bloomberg reported, has until the end of the year to raise the rest of the money for “Rebecca” and get the show up somewhere, anywhere. If he doesn’t, he may have to return the money he does have to his investors.

Much of that money, I’m told, has already been spent.

Around Broadway, the sense is that Sprecher’s finished as a producer.

But he’s a scrappy character, and I’m sure he’ll rustle up another career.

I hear Tony Fusco’s looking for a manager.