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Former Florida Jeweler Wanted in 2 States
Authorities in Florida and Louisiana have issued warrants for Anthony Simpson for alleged fraud.
West Palm Beach, Fla.--Authorities in two states are looking for a former Lake Park, Florida jeweler for alleged fraud.
Court records show that Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Samantha Schosberg Feuer issued a warrant for Anthony Simpson’s arrest on Friday after he failed to appear in court to respond to a charge of grand theft. He’s accused of allegedly borrowing $78,000 from an elderly North Palm Beach widow for his business and paying her back with bad checks.
Simpson previously owned Shamrock Jewelers on Northlake Boulevard in Lake Park, Florida. He could not be reached via attorney by press time.
This latest charge is related to issues that date back to late 2014 for Simpson, when the investors who had given him money for Rollaguard, a company he formed to create a high-tech security briefcase, filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Robert Furr, the bankruptcy trustee appointed to Rollaguard, told National Jeweler that they discovered that the approximately $12 million they had put into the business had been squandered and nothing had been produced.
Instead of using the investors’ money to produce the briefcase, the accountants found that Simpson had used about $2 million for personal expenses and another $8 million on Shamrock Jewelers.
They also discovered that some of the store’s inventory was missing, that a number of customers reported he hadn’t returned their jewelry, and more.
The store was closed in July 2015, and its contents were later auctioned off to raise money to pay Rollaguard’s investors.
Furr said the effort to pay back the investors is ongoing; he expects it to take a few years.
Simpson also was arrested in Florida in early 2016 on an unrelated warrant issued in Louisiana, where he faced charges of writing worthless checks to a diamond broker.
Local news reported that Simpson believed it to be a misunderstanding and made a deal to pay them back so that the case would be dropped, but Tommy Parker Diamonds has since said Simpson has not fulfilled his end of the deal. (They could not be reached for comment by press time.)
Records from the Ouachita Parish Sherriff’s Office in Louisiana show that an outstanding warrant was issued in October for failure to appear in court in relation to the bad checks.
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