}

Total Pageviews

Thursday, July 27, 2017

“PLENTY OF FISH” Crooked Chiropractor's Looking For Love Online! Just Days Before Robert Buckhannon's August 1st “Change of Plea” Hearing, Is He Fishing For Love...Or Another Victim?

Some days, the sky opens and glitter falls gently on your shoulders.

It doesn't happen often, but it happened today.

Today, I discovered that Battle Creek's infamous "crooked chiropractor", Robert Buckhannon, is looking for love online.

But Buckhannon's not looking on well-regarded sites like Match.com or eHarmony.com, he's out there trolling on the seedy (and free!) Plenty of Fish, or POF.com. 

POF attracts the kind of guy who'd ask you to duck into a bathroom stall during your lunch break and take a dirty picture of yourself.

Yes, there are plenty of sharks on Plenty of Fish, including one calling himself "vegasdr". Among the photos on the 57-year-old Buckhannon's profile, which falsely states his age as 50, is one that features Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel in the background. (That one must have been taken by Kelly during one of their trips.)

Another features a selfie of Buckhannon posing in what looks like a federal courthouse men's room.



Buckhannon may be light years away from the day he dropped $60,000 of investor money on an engagement ring for fiance (and later wife) Marlena Michaels, but he's skidding dangerously close to years of incarceration in a federal prison.

Buckhannon, who was ignominiously arrested by FBI agents at a Henderson, Nevada coffee shop on September 30, 2014, is set to plead guilty during an August 1, 2017 hearing before U.S. District Judge James C. Mahan. 

Buckhannon was released on a personal recognizance bond on October 1, 2014, and since then has continued his existence on the knife-edge of criminality with Zia Shlaimoun, a former hedge fund cohort. 

Buckhannon and co-defendant, Terry Rawstern, of Aberdeen, S.D., were charged in a criminal indictment with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of wire fraud. Daniel G. Bogden, United States Attorney for the District of Nevada said the fraud was committed from 2008 to 2010. 

If convicted, Buckhannon could have faced up to 30 years in prison on the conspiracy charge, and up to an additional 20 years in prison on the wire fraud charge. The DOJ said they will also have to pay fines that can reach up to $1 million per count. 

According to the indictment (filed on September 24, 2014 and unsealed October 1, 2014), from April 2008 through April 2010, Buckhannon and Rawstern, along with some other co-conspirators managed members of two Bradenton, Florida-based hedge funds, Arcanum Equity Fund, LLC and Vestium Equity Fund, LLC. 

The DOJ said the defendants engaged in a fraudulent scheme to misappropriate $34 million they raised from investors by misrepresenting how they would use the investors' funds, along with misrepresenting that there were safeguards over the investors' money, such as an independent trustee and independent fund administrator. 

The DOJ said the defendants then looted and bankrupted the hedge funds by taking payments on false and fictitious profits, while taking improper and undisclosed loans. 

The indictment stated that as a result of the defendants' conduct, investors lost approximately $13.1 million. Buckhannon was accused of “secretly funneling at least $341,000 of investor money to his family and associates”, the indictment alleged. 

He spent $60,000 on an engagement ring for his fiancé and $80,000 for a down payment on a Las Vegas house, the indictment alleged. 

In 2010, Buckhannon agreed to pay roughly $1.5 million to settle the SEC suit against him. That included returning $1.4 million to hedge fund investors and paying a $130,000 fine. 

But, as I reported on this blog August 14, 2014, Buckhannon never paid a penny of the settlement, a fact Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Newman noted while arguing for Buckhannon's detention at his October 1, 2014 bond hearing. She also said hundreds of investors lost money in the scheme and “$13.1 million was still missing”. 

Newman argued that Buckhannon was “a flight risk, with relatives and co-conspirators living outside the United States.” 

Newman acknowledged that Buckhannon was “the target of an arson investigation stemming from a December suspicious fire at a bar he owned in Battle Creek.” 

As of today, no charges have been filed relating to the Battle Creek On Deck fire and the investigation remains open.

So does he want to go out with a bang, a whimper...or both?

Hints can be found in his cheesy profile: I don't have any drama the only baggage I carry is a backpack when I travel.

Could Buckhannon be leaving Las Vegas for, oh, I don't know, Ecuador?

What is Buckhannon looking for in a victim? An unmarried Caucasian woman who does not want kids...but has lots of money.



If you fall for Buckhannon's scam, don't say you weren't warned!

1 comment:

  1. Thank you, Miss Fortune, for all that you do to expose crooks. The public needs to know.

    ReplyDelete