Jay Lucas, a businessman and one-time Republican candidate for New Hampshire governor, has been arrested and charged with running a $50 million Ponzi scheme
Federal prosecutors released a long list of changes against Lucas Thursday, including securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Each count carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison. Lucas also faces one count of investment adviser fraud, which carries a maximum prison term of five years.
Authorities say since 2017 Lucas, who has a home in Portsmouth as well as Manhattan, was behind a scheme to raise money from would-be investors in new ventures by lying about his credentials and intentions, and using new investors’ money to pay off earlier investors while enriching himself.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Lucas, 71, sought “to raise more than $50 million from investors by falsely representing that their money would be invested in early-stage health and wellness companies, when in fact it was diverted to cover personal expenses, promote unrelated ventures, and make Ponzi-like payments to earlier investors.”
Among the ventures Lucas is alleged to have funneled investor money to is a company called Immunocologie, which prosecutors describe as a luxury skincare business run by his wife. Most of the money diverted to Immunocologie went to “parties and trips to luxury resorts” by Lucas’s wife.
In addition, prosecutors allege, Lucas spent investor money “on personal expenses including alimony, rent, a vanity newspaper project in his hometown, and political consultants.”
That newspaper — the Claremont Eagle Times — closed earlier this year, leading to accusations that Lucas had failed to pay the paper’s employees and reneged on promises to help revive the area.
In recent years, Lucas has sought to raise the profile of his hometown of Newport, including through the purchase of the newspaper, and other philanthropic efforts. He launched a nonprofit dubbed "The Sunshine Initiative," which sought to restore Main Street businesses in small towns across America through community-minded civic engagement.
On Thursday evening, the Granite Eagle - a blog that Lucas had founded -- posted a message to readers indicating that Lucas had not been involved with the publication “for some time.”
Plans were already underway to rebrand the publication well before Lucas's arrest, according to Chris Thompson, the publication’s editor: “We will now be moving forward with that rebrand on an accelerated timeline, with completion expected by the end of the year.”
In 1998, Lucas was the Republican nominee in the race for New Hampshire governor, a race he lost to Jeanne Shaheen.
Lucas did not respond to a request for comment Thursday evening.
