Yacht Fraud Suspect Who Taunted Victims Arrested

A former Newport Beach yacht dealer suspected of stealing more than $2 million from his clients and then writing them cheerful letters and Christmas cards as he traveled the world on their money has been arrested in Florida.

Tony Bell, 51, was arrested Wednesday at a recreation-vehicle dealership in Winter Park, Fla., more than two years after warrants were issued for his arrest.

“I jumped for joy when I heard that he was caught,” said Kathleen Puskas of Garden Grove, who said that she and her husband lost $200,000 when Bell disappeared in November, 1987. “I was elated. I waited so long for this to happen; it’s so hard to believe it’s happening.”

Bell, who had been working at the RV dealership, was being held in Fort Lauderdale on $955,000 bail. His attorney, Frank Conner of Laguna Niguel, said Thursday night that his client would plead not guilty at his arraignment in federal court scheduled today. Conner said that any money Bell’s customers may have lost was the result of business failures, not fraud.

Investigators said Bell left his ailing Spindrift Yachts dealership in Newport Beach in November, 1987, after he held a telephone conference with his top executives, including his brother and partner, Randy Bell.

“Basically, he said that he didn’t want to be 50 and broke and that he wished them a good life,” said Kevin Allen, the Fort Lauderdale detective who had tracked Bell for the last two years.

After another telephone conference with the executives of his Fort Lauderdale branch, authorities believe, Bell boarded a plane for South America. Then, the correspondence began to arrive.

The Puskases were among those who heard from Bell. “He said he was having lots of fun . . . that he did not rob anybody, and that he even wished we were there,” Puskas said. “We were disgusted.”

California sculptor Ron Lee, who said he lost $112,000, received one of the Christmas greetings. “In the past, I have been kicked when I was down, but never kicked when I was down and then run over,” Lee said. “That was one of the most rotten things anyone could ever do.”

On hearing news of Bell’s arrest, some of the alleged victims said it was their turn to celebrate. “We opened a bottle of champagne this morning,” said Richard Donner, director and producer of “Lethal Weapon” and “Lethal Weapon II.” Donner said he lost a $30,000 deposit on a 58-foot yacht.

Several of the 25 people who allegedly lost money are from Southern California, about seven are from Florida and the remainder are from across the country. A Taiwanese shipbuilder, who built the yachts for Spindrift, is also among the victims, Allen said. In fact, it was a private investigator hired by the shipbuilder who tipped police to Bell’s whereabouts.

Newport Beach police began the initial investigation in November, 1987, after receiving a complaint from an Oklahoma City businessman to the effect that Bell had fled with his $650,000 deposit. The businessman had also hired an attorney and a private investigator to find Bell, Allen said.

About the same time, Allen received a complaint from a Fort Lauderdale man who claimed he had lost his $20,000 deposit to Spindrift. “I spoke to a company official in Fort Lauderdale who told me about the teleconference meeting,” Allen said. “He said that many people who dealt with the company’s Newport Beach office . . . were having the same problems.”

Allen then contacted Newport Beach police. “But when the contact was made, Newport Beach police didn’t have a victim,” he said. The Oklahoman’s private investigator had apparently contacted Bell, who instructed his attorney to repay a portion of the $650,000, Allen said.

Allen said the Oklahoma man wouldn’t reveal to police the details of the agreement with Bell or his whereabouts.

Allen said he obtained a list of Spindrift’s clients and wrote a form letter telling about his investigation. He also inquired whether they were satisfied with the services rendered by the company.

“The statements began rolling in,” Allen said. “Most were very nice, affluent people. Some of them wrote it off as a loss or they tried to work it through a private attorney. It was amazing.”

Allen said Spindrift had an excellent reputation at one time. Customers described Bell as a man who “wined and dined them, won their trust and then stabbed them in the back. And then they felt he gloated about it with his letters.”

After traveling to Southern California to interview Spindrift’s customers, Fort Lauderdale police secured a warrant for Bell’s arrest in 1988. Allen said an inspection of company’s records stored at a Laguna Niguel warehouse revealed that Bell had given himself sole authority over the company’s funds and had wired at least $2 million to banks in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland.

But Conner, Bell’s Laguna Niguel attorney, disputed that account, saying the records will show that Bell wired only $800,000 out of the country.

He also expressed surprise at the arrest. Conner said Bell had recently hired a Fort Lauderdale attorney who negotiated an agreement with authorities for Bell to surrender. “I was shocked that they went ahead and arrested him anyway,” Conner said.

The entire incident, he said, was “a business failure, not a fraud.”

“This is highly unfortunate, but a lot of these charges people are making are simply fantasies.”

“I was there when he had the telephone conference,” Conner said. “He said that he didn’t want to declare bankruptcy, that he planned to use the remaining liquid assets to invest and repay these people.”

Still, Jennie Tugend, a business associate of “Lethal Weapon’s” Donner, said Donner feels betrayed by Bell.

“Fortunately, we didn’t get a Christmas postcard from him or we would have sent our lethal weapons for him,” she quipped.