FBI Raids Home of West Islip Man Charged with Defrauding Producers of Broadway Show

FBI agents raided the waterfront home of a West Islip man Monday morning following accusations that he orchestrated an elaborate scheme featuring fabricated investors to fund the ill-fated Broadway show "Rebecca."

Mark Hotton, 46, who the Huffington Post describes as a "former stockbroker," faces several federal charges stemming from the fraud accusations, as well as another money laundering case filed by prosecutors on Long Island.

Hotton's wife, sister and two associates have also been charged in the latter case which has yet to be unsealed, according to The New York Times.

The Manhattan indictment accuses Hotton of conning the "Rebecca" producers by convincing them he had arranged $4.5 million in financing from investors who turned out to never exist. In one instance, Hotton even allegedly faked the identity and death of a primary investor, a business man known as "Paul Abrams." Hotton collected commissions for lining up the supposed investors.

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"Mark Hotton perpetrated stranger-than-fiction frauds both on and off Broadway," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement Monday. "Hotton concocted a cast of characters to invest in a major musical - investors who turned out to be deep-pocketed phantoms. To carry out the alleged fraud, Hotton faked lives, faked companies and even staged a fake death, pretending that one imaginary investor had suddenly died from malaria."

As a result of the investigation, plans to turn the 1938 Daphne du Maurier novel into a Broadway production have collapsed.

Hotton was charged with two counts of wire fraud. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors also accuse Hotton of using a similar scheme to con a Connecticut-based real estate company into paying him $75,000, according to The Huffington Post.

The separate Long Island indictment alleges Hotton and his wife ran a scheme related to their three electrical contracting companies, cheating business partners out of $3.7 million.

Read the full report here.