AUGUSTA, Maine — A Maine fugitive accused of stealing more than half a million dollars from midcoast residents who invested in his fraudulent business scheme has been apprehended in New Jersey and is awaiting transport to a Maine jail.
Robert J. Howarth, 62, was caught on Friday, July 15, by police at a traffic stop in Fort Lee, New Jersey, according to the Fort Lee Daily Voice website. The wanted man evidently has been living in Bergen, New Jersey, for the last three years, police told the New Jersey newspaper.
“Mr. Howarth has been taken into custody in the state of New Jersey,” Tim Feeley of the Maine attorney general’s office said Friday. “He’s awaiting transport to the state of Maine.”
Howarth, who has used the aliases of Robert Chiofolo, Robert Kim Lee and Robert Sachs, is wanted in both Waldo and York counties.
He’ll be extradited to York County, Feeley said, where the grand jury last year indicted him on charges of theft by deception and securities fraud.
But before he came to the attention of authorities in York County, Howarth lived in Belfast, where he moved in 2009 and where he befriended people he allegedly asked to invest in his clothing business.
“He came to the area, claimed that he was a successful businessman, and seemed to back that up by having lots of cash, dressing really well and having nice things,” Carrie Carney, a then assistant attorney general, said in May 2015. “He convinced people to invest in his clothing business and said he’d give them significant returns on their investments.”
Howarth managed to convince 17 people from the midcoast area to invest a total of $572,000 with him, she said, and in general told his investors that he would buy last year’s clothing from retailers at sharply reduced rates and then profitably resell the clothing overseas. But instead of doing that, Carney said, he apparently left the area.
He resurfaced in 2012 in York County, according to the Maine Office of Securities, where he allegedly convinced a couple to invest $27,000 in his clothing business. As federal investigators looked into the alleged theft in York County, they learned about his alleged Waldo County activities. Investigators interviewed his alleged victims and built their case, Carney said last year.
Howarth was indicted in May 2015 by the Waldo County grand jury on charges of theft by deception and securities fraud, and a warrant signed in 2015 for his arrest issued a nationwide request for his extradition.
Howarth will be arraigned on the York County charges as early as next week, Feeley said Friday.
After Howarth’s indictments last year, Maine Securities Administrator Judith Shaw issued a statement to remind potential investors to always thoroughly research investment offers before handing over funds. She also urged Mainers to contact the Office of Securities to check an adviser, sales representative or investment or to obtain other information related to investing.
The office can be reached by calling 877-624-8551, visiting www.investors.maine.gov or by writing the Maine Office of Securities at 121 SHS, Augusta, ME 04333-0121.