Gary Kleinman, one of three California bakery executives convicted of ripping off the Arkansas Development Finance Authority with a phony scheme to revive Koehler Bakery in Sherwood, is cooking up something new.
On Facebook, the former president of Sweet Goods Inc. identifies himself as president of an Internet startup in New York called Lovepost.com, a place for engaged and newlywed couples to share every romantic detail with millions of their closest friends.
And he has encouragement from a very high-profile couple: Jeffrey Weingarten, who spent the first half of the 1990s as chief investment officer for Goldman Sachs Asset Management and who is now non-executive chairman of Grosvenor Fund Management of London, and his bride, Belinda Broido, who lists herself on Facebook as creative director of Lovepost.com.
Whispers reached out to both Kleinman and Broido through Facebook to no avail.
The Fraud That Keeps On Giving
The Sweet Goods case may seem like ancient history, but Kleinman should be finishing his probation just this month.
Eleven years have passed since Kleinman, Joel Rund and Robert Statman rode in from El Cajon, Calif., as the white knights who would rescue 81-year-old Koehler and make good on the $2.1 million that the Koehler family had borrowed through ADFA. But, of course, they needed another $1.7 million from ADFA for new equipment to make it work.
The renamed bakery failed within months. When the dust settled, a federal grand jury in Little Rock indicted the Sweet Goods Three in 2005 for conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering because it seems they spent the money on themselves and their families rather than on new ovens.
The three ultimately pleaded guilty to reduced charges in 2009. Statman and Rund served time in federal prison, and Kleinman got three years of probation for helping the prosecution.
Kleinman, Statman and Rund were ordered to pay $580,000 in restitution, and ADFA confirmed last week that Kleinman has been making semi-regular payments, including nearly $1,300 in January.
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