If It Prints, I'll Let You Know

The owner of what is being presented to investors as a printer repair company has been charged with defrauding his investors – who number at least 60 – over the course of nine years. Matthew Scott, aged 50, a businessman from Elmhurst, has been charged in a “criminal information” filed involving $28 million Ponzi scheme. The defendant is reportedly expected to later plead guilty to the charges.

Scott’s company, Gelsco, Inc., is being marketed by the former to investors as a company engaged in the purchase of used high speed printers, which the company then resells for a substantial profit. His scheme allegedly began in the year 2000 all through this year.

In reality, though, he was just, in a manner of speaking, “playing” with investors’ money, trying to attract more new investors in order to pay off the earlier ones that he had convinced to invest in his venture. There were no printers that he said he allegedly purchased, and therefore there were also no printers that were resold to turn a profit. What he was able to do, however, was to present investors with purchase orders, invoices and promissory notes that were all basically bogus. These phony documents, however, were able to make it appear that he had a legitimate operation when it was actually not true.

The only way for the scheme to work is for Scott to attract even more investors. In the process, he reportedly lost at least four and a half million dollars of his investors’ money.

Matthew Scott will most probably face trial due to the charges and may end up serving quite a bit of jail time if and when he gets convicted. He may spend as much as 20 years in prison as well as be ordered to pay fines that is either twice the loss of any of his victims or twice the gain he allegedly made out of the scheme – whichever is greater in value.

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