Convicted Con Man Goes Back To Jail In Loan Scheme January 14, 1987|By Prakash Gandhi of The Sentinel Staff A 40-year-old convicted bank con artist was behind bars again Tuesday night, accused of organizing a loan scheme that authorities say bilked six people out of more than $55,000. Agents said Larry B. Cohen, jailed in 1978 for trying to steal $221,000 by telephone from three banks in Orlando and one in Lakeland, made his money by promising multimillion-dollar, low-interest loans to people looking for investors. He showed the victims newspaper clips about his fraud conviction to prove he had the money, authorities said.

The six victims, most of them living in Central Florida, lost more than $55,000 in the scheme. Officials believe Cohen might have made more than $100,000. ''This was an elaborate story and they the victims fell for it because they had never been exposed to a Shylock before,'' said Bill Lutz, director of the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation.

Orange County deputy sheriffs arrested Cohen about 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Florida Mall on a warrant obtained last month by the FBI.

Cohen, of Starke, was charged with racketeering, four counts of grand theft and extortion. He was being held in the Orange County Jail on $100,000 bond.

In most cases, the victims were business people looking for investors to start a business or expand their companies, according to an FBI affidavit and summary of facts. The victims usually would put advertisements in newspapers asking for investment capital, said Larry Schuchman, an FBI agent.

Several victims were introduced to Cohen by reputable local attorneys who had met him through ads they had placed seeking investors for their clients, the report said.

After meeting Cohen, the victims would tell him how much they wanted to borrow. If they wanted thousands of dollars, Cohen would offer millions at a 10 percent interest rate with no payment due for 18 months, the affidavit said.

He also would produce a document saying he had $21 million in a Swiss bank account and show newspaper articles about his bank wire fraud convictions to prove he had the capital.

Cohen then would ask victims for cash to pay for lawyers' fees and hotel and travel expenses that he said were necessary to get the money transferred into the victim's account in America, the report said.

In some cases, he even asked the victims to travel out of the state or country to get money out of accounts in New York, Zurich, London or Paris. The person the victim was supposed to meet never showed up or the bank account was fictitious, the report said.

Cohen, meanwhile, continued to try to get money from the victims, giving them excuses about why the transfer of cash to them had been delayed. Nobody received any loans, the report said.

When one victim hesitated about giving Cohen more money, he threatened to harm her daughter, the report said.

Victims eventually contacted investigators, Schuchman said.