Tag Archives: philadelphia business journal

so orange is to be the new black for gladwyne’s scott mason, eh?

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This is a screenshot sent to this blog that is a public photo,
note the little globe.

It’s a crazy tale, isn’t it?

First of all there’s the whole Main Line of it all and should we just call it for what people think it is? Stealing from customers to keep up with the Joneses in the 19035 ?

And then there’s the thing that this is a man who’s just been convicted of worse but similar to what his father did years ago and what’s up with that? If you figure this man is 66 years old, he was old enough in the mid 70s, etc. to comprehend what his father did, which undoubtedly had a horrible effect on his own family growing up, right? Should we just say apparently not since this is like a twisted repeating pattern of life?

https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-20

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/gladwyne-investment-adviser-charged-misappropriating-more-17-million-clients-through

What also amuses me about this case is anytime anyone has tried to post any of the articles in any Gladwyne Pennsylvania social media groups since this saga started, the posts get deleted?

Nothing to see here, can’t interrupt life in one of the towns of the Magic Kingdom known as Lower Merion.

It’s always interesting sociologically how people react to these stories. You know they’re all whispering behind their hands, but it’s like they don’t want to admit in public it happened. Wonder what the boys are saying at Squires Golf Club in Ambler or wherever it is?

Gladwyne Investment Adviser Charged With Misappropriating More Than $17 Million From Clients Through Two Long-Running Fraud Schemes

So many questions, right?

Honestly, I don’t feel sorry for the man. I go back to the fact he’s 66 years old. He’s old enough to remember how what his father Melvyn Mason did to at least his family must have felt right?

Newspaper archives contain the sins of the father and the Prudential Bache scandals of the 1970s don’t they?

So did Scott Mason have to choose this path he will now forever be remembered for? I mean adults are suppose to know the difference between right and wrong, right? After all it’s what you teach your kids or are supposed to/try to, right?

So supposedly Scott Mason gets sentenced in May. Wonder what his wife knows? And you have to wonder what happens to the rest of his immediate and extended family because of his actions including his father? And what will happen to the people he stole from?

I truly feel sorry for his kids (their worlds must be so blown up, he’s their dad) as well as obviously sorry for his victims.

I also feel sorry for the charitable institutions and any nonprofits affected by his actions and what about his alma mater Hobart William Smith College in Geneva, New York? And if he is a slumlord landlord up there, what happens to the students who have rented properties from him? Do they stay in their places and the bank just takes over or what happens?

So many questions….still. So much squandered by this man who has had so many legit opportunities and is this the legacy he will leave his kids and grandchildren? And you have to wonder if before any of this happened if his kids even knew what his father had gotten up to when he was a kid? This is like a real life NetFlix series it’s so messed up.

I will begin to end this with it’s astounding. He took a sledgehammer to so many lives by his actions, including his own. In fact, greed is not good. Did Scott Mason think he was Gordon Gekko or something?

And to the 19035? Y’all were better before the nouveau invasion. The entire Main Line was.

Hopefully people will learn from this, but our society seems so lost and divided, I just don’t know. Until then, orange is the new Main Line black, right?

scott mason charged by feds, so did he exceed what daddy did all those years ago or copy cat?

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Uh huh. Boom, here it is:

Gladwyne Investment Adviser Charged With Misappropriating More Than $17 Million From Clients Through Two Long-Running Fraud Schemes

Friday, January 17, 2025

PHILADELPHIA – United States Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero announced that Scott Mason, 66, of Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, was charged by criminal information with wire fraud, securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, and filing false tax returns, arising from two fraudulent schemes that Mason, through his investment advisory firm Rubicon Wealth Management LLC, orchestrated to divert millions of dollars in client funds in order to finance his lavish lifestyle.

The information alleges that between 2016 and 2024, Mason — who had a fiduciary duty to make investment decisions in his clients’ best interests — transferred more than $17 million from 13 Rubicon clients to an entity that he owned and controlled, and ultimately used that money to finance his personal expenditures, including international travel, country club membership dues, credit card bill payments, and the purchase of an ownership stake in a Jersey Shore-based miniature golf course.

The information further alleges that Mason targeted clients with whom he had a longstanding relationship and who trusted him implicitly, including longtime friends and family members, and he often liquidated those clients’ securities holdings in order to finance the fraudulent transfers. Mason allegedly either forged client signatures on distribution authorization forms or omitted all pertinent details of the so-called “investments” when seeking client authorization for the transfers and instead falsely represented that he was investing client funds in diversified short-term bonds.

In reality, as the information alleges, Mason was converting client funds to his own personal use. He also used a portion of the fraud proceeds to repay another Rubicon client from whom Mason had allegedly misappropriated an additional several million dollars dating back to at least 2014, in order to avoid detection by that victim.

Finally, the information alleges that Mason failed to report any of his fraud proceeds on his personal income tax returns, generating a tax loss of approximately $3.225 million.

If convicted, the defendant faces a maximum possible sentence of 80 years’ imprisonment and a fine of $6,760,000.

The case was investigated by the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jessica Rice. In a parallel matter, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced charges against Mason today.

An indictment, information, or criminal complaint is an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Contact

USAPAE.PressBox@usdoj.gov
215-861-8300

Updated January 17, 2025

So are we surprised? What happens to the wifey, Lynne?

So here is the Philadelphia Business Journal article:

Main Line wealth manager charged with stealing millions from clients

By Jeff Blumenthal – Senior Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal

Jan 17, 2025

CLICK TO ENLARGE
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And Joe Di Stephano’s article in the Inquirer also is terrific and loaded with information.

Main Line investment manager is charged with stealing millions from his clients

Scott Mason, who operated Rubicon Wealth Management in Montgomery County, is accused of taking at least $17 million from clients’ accounts to finance his Main Line lifestyle. by Joseph N. DiStefano Updated Jan. 17, 2025, 2:47 p.m. ET

So how far has Hobart distanced themselves? Here’s the SEC thing:

https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-20

SEC Charges Pennsylvania Investment Adviser Scott Mason With Misappropriating More Than $20 Million from Advisory Clients

For Immediate Release

2025-20

Washington D.C., Jan. 17, 2025 —

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged former Pennsylvania-based investment adviser Scott J. Mason, and his companies Rubicon Wealth Management LLC and Orchard Park Real Estate Holdings LLC, with misappropriating more than $20 million from at least 13 Rubicon advisory clients.

According to the SEC’s complaint, from at least 2014 to 2024, Mason made unauthorized transfers of money from Rubicon clients’ accounts to his own accounts and those of his entities, Rubicon and Orchard Park. As the complaint alleges, Mason used the money for his own purposes, including to pay country club dues, transfer it to other clients, and purchase a portion of a miniature golf course in New Jersey. The complaint further alleges that Mason forged clients’ signatures, made numerous misrepresentations about what he was doing with clients’ money, and concealed his fraud for years by providing fake account statements and tax documents.

“As alleged, Mason’s clients trusted him to invest their money as he said he would but, instead, he repeatedly abused that trust to enrich himself at their expense. He then lied to them and manipulated documents to cover his tracks,” said Nicholas P. Grippo, Regional Director of the SEC’s Philadelphia Regional Office. “This action once again shows the SEC’s commitment to holding advisers accountable when they violate the federal securities laws.”

The SEC’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, charges Mason, Rubicon, and Orchard Park with violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws.  Mason, Rubicon, and Orchard Park have consented to the entry of final judgments that permanently enjoin them from committing future violations of those provisions and provides that the court will decide the amounts of disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and civil penalties at a later date. The settlement is subject to court approval.

In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania today announced criminal charges against Mason.

The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Laura E.L. Gavin, Brian P. Thomas, and Norman P. Ostrove in the SEC’s Philadelphia Regional Office. It was supervised by Scott A. Thompson and Nicholas P. Grippo in the Philadelphia Regional Office. The litigation will be led by Spencer Willig and supervised by Gregory R. Bockin. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the FBI.

https://www.sec.gov/enforcement-litigation/litigation-releases/lr-26224

comp pr2025 20 SECDownload

Of course it remains to be seen what happens. One thing I find curious is why did the SEC allow him to be his own compliance officer at RubiCON Wealth Management?

So in the brave new world we are entering with a new administration coming to Washington DC next week, how will this all play out? Historically can it be said the SEC is more stringent in republican administrations? Only time will tell. What happens to the wifey? And he was an off campus student housing slumlord up where Hobart William Smith is in Geneva, NY? Is that oddly apropos, considering?

So what happens to the house in Gladwyne? It doesn’t show as for sale on Realtor.com or am I looking in the wrong place?

This guy. Blows my mind. One would think he learned from what his own father did, right? What did daddy do? Well it was in the papers… even the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1975/02/21/archives/52million-total-cited-sec-alleges-bache-aided-in-a-scheme-to-bilk.html

Grab the popcorn…yet very sad. This guy’s greed has brought shame on his family, right? Who else will come forward with a tale to tell here? I feel truly sorry for his children. Again, didn’t he learn from what his father did when he was growing up? And his father is still alive, isn’t he? Where does he live?

This truly is a cautionary tale. And in the end, greed does not pay.

seeking rubicon
19035 is madoff-lite buzzing again…and adding 08008 to the mix?
mind blown: lower merion is new grifter capital of the main line?

contrasts

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Yesterday was a study in contrasts. Started out my morning in Chester County, and headed up to New York City for the day.

New York City in October is very alive and bustling. A cacophony of sights and sounds and smells. I worked in New York for a few years when I was younger and fall and spring were my favorite seasons. It is such a contrast now to go from the quiet of Chester County to the very definition of urban.

From the east side to the west side, New York City is a sea of constant motion…and taxi cabs. It’s beeping and honking and massive waves of people bustling across giant intersections.

It is one of my favorite places to take photos, but yesterday there wasn’t time for that. I appreciate the beauty and the urban canyons of Manhattan, but I truly am a Chester County person now….I love getting back to the trees and fields.

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From New York City it was back to Ardmore for the last First Friday Main Line. The event was the Happy Howl O’Ween dress up your dog contest.

Since 2006 First Friday Main Line has been there to bring art and music to every day life ; bringing local artists, musicians, and small businesses together. Inspired by the Old City (Philadelphia) First Friday, First Friday Main Line has had people discovering art in unexpected places.

Because Ardmore doesn’t really have gallery spaces, the art and music were tucked in alleys, store fronts, restaurants and on the street. All of this was done by Executive Director and Ardmore business owner and resident, Sherry Tillman. These were never Lower Merion Township as in municipal sponsored events. Many municipalities are deeply involved in the First Friday celebrations of their communities, but the extent of Lower Merion’s involvement was basically collecting permit fees.

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First Friday Main Line was something I was deeply involved in until the spring of 2013. I did the publicity and event photography and it was an amazing ride, including a Congressional Commendation in 2010 for our Operation Angel Wings initiative.

But change is inevitable. Sherry called me a couple of months ago to let me know she was putting First Friday on hiatus. I had stopped actively participating because of my move to Chester County and new life here. I was sad to hear her news, but understood. She wanted to focus on different kinds of art events and get back to creating on her own. Sherry is an artist in her own right.

Coming back to the last First Friday Main Line was a bittersweet, yet sentimental journey. I had spent so much time in Ardmore between First Friday Main Line and the community activism I was part of a few years ago. (Lower Merion Township had once to seize part of the historic business district via eminent domain for private gain.)

Coming back to the area I once called home is now like being a stranger in a strange land. What once was home, is now just a place I used to live. The contrast was very pronounced to me this visit. I loved seeing all the old and in many cases beloved familiar faces, but I see everything now through different eyes in a thanks for the memories kind of way. I no longer belong to these old places, I belong to Chester County.

Part of the contrast which was sad to see is just well, how grungy and almost worn around the edges Lower Merion Township seems to look. And that isn’t just the business districts. When I was a kid Lower Merion really was a beautiful place to live. Now it is just an expensive place to live, which is not the same thing.

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What I observed was a lot of the sense of community and neighborliness no longer seems to be self evident. A lot of strangers bustling by, and I wonder are there still people stepping up to foster a true sense of community? Or maybe it’s no longer that kind of place?

I have to be honest I do not miss the congestion and traffic of the Main Line nor do I miss the constant development. I felt really old passing by locations where I remember the house and the people who lived there, only now planted on those spots were condos and McMansions and such. All of what replaced what was in these spots are built out to the last possible inch with no real attempt at human scale let alone compatible style. In fact, no real style at all, these projects between Wayne and Ardmore scream nothing more than “new”. Sad.

Down the street from where my parents used to live, I read recently about a house which has a property which is now the subject of potential development. I knew it as the Woodruff House.. The super family which once lived there is long gone and sadly mostly passed away. Realistically, the development will probably happen. There is no zoning and planning to prevent it even if it is a ridiculous and vastly inappropriate spot for infill development.

But it has been almost 40 years at this point since Lower Merion Township had a comprehensive plan update, and the lack of planning is showing. What worries me about what is happening on the Main Line is the same developers snapping up whatever they can there are also in Chester County.

Take Downingtown, as in the borough. If they don’t watch it, they will make the same mistake that Malvern Borough did with Eli Kahn and Eastside Flats, which should really be seen from the rear too. An article appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer recently:

Archdiocese sells Delco property, 2 others for $56.2M By Harold Brubaker, Inquirer Staff Writer POSTED: October 04, 2014

Yep, Eli Kahn.…again….Eastside Flats which still look vastly out of place in Malvern and unfinished although they are finished and the project is for sale (See Philadelphia Business Journal, July 2, 2014) .

And remember that very telling Patch article a couple years ago that told a very different tale of how much money Malvern Borough would actually make off of this project?

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$60,000: East King Revitalization’s Impact on the Borough The new apartments and businesses won’t be a windfall for the borough. By Pete Kennedy (Open Post) Updated June 29, 2012 at 1:38 am

During a discussion…at….Malvern Borough Council, resident Joan Yeager asked a related question:

“Once the King Street project is completed, how much additional money is going to come into the borough? In taxes and all,” she said.

“Something in the neighborhood of $60,000 a year,” council president Woody Van Sciver said, citing a financial feasibility study done before the project was approved.

“That’s it?” Yeager replied, expecting a bigger payoff from the several new businesses and hundreds of new residents that will be moving to the east end of the borough.

Downingtown can afford a development misstep even less than Malvern Borough. And I love Malvern, but if there is some benefit to having that Christ awful development once you get beyond having Christopher’s there and Kimberton Whole Foods moving in, I haven’t seen it. And the development looks like giant Lego buildings (with about as much finesse) plunked down in Lilliput.

There are a lot of empty store fronts in Eastside Flats and the borough itself, and last time I was there to have lunch at Christopher’s there were cigarette butts all over the sidewalk in front of the nail salon. Of course I also wondered why such “high end” and new real estate could only get a nail salon? And have you ever see Eastside Flats from the rear? It shows it’s backside to a lot of Malvern residents over the tracks and wow, a little landscaping might help. But do developers like this care about the existing residents?

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My travels yesterday merely reaffirmed the true contrast between urban, suburban, and Chester County. And suburban doesn’t have to and shouldn’t be the mini-me to urban, and well for us out here in Chester County, we shouldn’t want developers to spin their tales of the Emperor’s New Clothes out here and give us the awkward new urbanism fairy tale or hybrid cross of what they are shoe horning in everywhere else. Maybe that is NIMBY (not in my back yard) of me, but heck I have lived with bad projects and bad planning in my back yard–it’s one of the things I was happy to leave behind on the Main Line when I moved to Chester County.

I still believe Chester County is incredibly vulnerable to these projects, and these tiny towns and boroughs need to think carefully before jumping to the extremes of these very dense developments. Places grow and evolve and not all development is bad, but there is just way too much of it. The pace needs to slow.

The open space and gracious rolling farm lands,fields, and forests which make up Chester County are worth preserving. So is the way of life which accompanies it. Thanks for stopping by today. I know this post has rambled along, and when I started out with my original thought of contrast I wasn’t quite sure where this post would lead me.

Enjoy the beautiful day!

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