Twenty years ago, W.A. "Tony" Rand was convicted in Little Rock federal court of defrauding lenders who bought into his aspirations of building a 400-screen movie theater chain.
The North Little Rock businessman churned $17 million through his Rand Theatres operation to feed his family’s taste for the good life.
At the time, his crimes were described as the largest fraud committed by an individual convicted in the Eastern District Court of Arkansas.
A nearly seven-year stretch in prison apparently served only to inspire a vastly larger interstate scheme from Texas. This gambit involved Rand, now 70, and his five sons swindling hundreds of oil and gas investors of more than $110 million. Some suspect their schemes at times resembled a plot line in a zany 1968 movie "The Producers."
The family members, some of whom were estranged from each other, operated several sophisticated scams to rake in the necessary cash to enjoy the trappings of multimillion-dollar success.
Investors from Laguna Niguel, Calif., to Janesville, Wis., to Longboat Key, Fla., unwittingly supported the Rands in lavish style.
Click to read George Waldon’s full cover story in this week’s Arkansas Business.
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