Scott Smith
A New York investor received a $450,000 judgment last week from an Arkansas man who boasted about having connections to former President Bill Clinton.
And that wasn’t the wildest claim Scott Smith of Bryant made when he enticed Nicholas Gordon, vice president of Zion Capital Ventures Inc. of New York, to invest almost half a million dollars.
Smith, who back in 2011 was senior managing partner of SKB Partners LLC of Bryant, also produced a special note from the Federal Reserve Bank that purported to give him access to $10 billion. That’s according to the lawsuit Gordon filed in 2015 in federal court in Little Rock.
U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr. ruled that Smith and SKB had taken $450,000 from Gordon and Zion Capital and “had no intent to honor the contract.”
He awarded Gordon and Zion $450,000 plus interest and nearly $16,000 in attorney’s fees. The plaintiffs were represented by the Hancock Law Firm of Little Rock. Gordon’s attorney, Charles “Dan” Hancock, said Smith was found liable not only for breach of contract but for fraud and conversion. Hancock said he will ask the judge to add punitive damages to the judgment.
Smith’s attorney, Jeremy Hutchinson of Little Rock, declined to comment.
Securities Suit
Gordon’s case also was the subject of a Pulaski County Circuit Court suit brought by the Arkansas Securities Commissioner back in 2014, although that case said Gordon’s investment was slightly larger, $475,000. (Hancock said there is some dispute whether Gordon invested $450,000 or $475,000.)
The complaint included more juicy details about the wrongdoing, including that Smith defrauded an Arkansas medical doctor out of $250,000. In that case, “Smith held himself out to [the doctor] as a business consultant and financial expert,” said the complaint, filed by A. Heath Abshure, who was state securities commissioner at the time.
Whispers has chosen not to identify the victim in this case; unlike Gordon, he did not file a lawsuit.
In 2006, Smith pitched the doctor with the opportunity to invest in a home health care company in Florida.
The doctor invested $250,000 but never saw the money again, the lawsuit said. Abshure said Smith used most of the cash for himself, including $25,000 for his child’s sports team.
And Abshure said that Smith tapped others to “impersonate respected financial figures during phone conversations” with Gordon. Abshure said that Smith used an impostor to impersonate George Gleason II, CEO of Bank of the Ozarks Inc. of Little Rock, to persuade Gordon that investing with Smith was sound.
Gordon never saw any of his investment again either. Absure said Smith used the money to treat himself to a $58,000 car and $125,000 home renovation/addition project.
In January 2016, Smith agreed to pay $475,000 in restitution to Gordon and $250,000 to the doctor.
The judgment Gordon got last week in federal court will allow him to slap liens on Smith’s properties.
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