Prominent Monmouth County Real Estate Developer Charged with $50 Million Bank Fraud Scheme

NEWARK – A Monmouth County real estate developer was charged today with scheming to defraud PNC Bank out of $50 million, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie and Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis A. Valentin announced.

Solomon Dwek, 33, was arrested this morning at his Ocean Township, Monmouth County home on a criminal Complaint by Special Agents of the FBI and investigators from the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office. Dwek appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Falk, who ordered Dwek to post a $10 million bond secured by equity totaling $3 million in the Deal homes of his mother-in-law and a sister-in-law. Magistrate Falk also ordered Dwek and his wife to surrender their passports.

Dwek, a Monmouth and Ocean County real estate developer and vice president of the Deal Yeshiva School in West Long Branch, is charged in the Complaint with defrauding PNC Bank in connection with his deposit of two $25 million checks drawn on a Dwek account that had been closed and had a zero balance, and his subsequent use of nearly half the money obtained from this scheme – more than $22 million.

According to the criminal Complaint, Dwek arrived at PNC Bank’s Eatontown Branch on April 24, 2005, and presented a check for $25,212,076.35 to be deposited into a business account in the name of SEM Realty Associates, LLC., that only he controlled. The check was drawn on a separate Dwek business account, in the name of Corbett Holdings II, LLC, which was in a “closed status” with no balance to cover the deposit to the other account.

In an effort to get the PNC Bank employees to deposit the check, Dwek falsely claimed that he had spoken to “Corporate” and that they were going to re-open the account, according to the Complaint. He further promised that a wire transfer was on its way to cover the balance. Relying on Dwek’s representations, PNC Bank deposited the check.

As stated in the Complaint, the following morning, April 25, 2006, Dwek wire transferred a total of $22,790,000 using the funds made available to him from the aforementioned $25 million deposit. Dwek sent the largest wire transfer, which was in the amount of $20 million, to HSBC Bank to payoff a loan in Dwek’s and another individual’s name. The Complaint further alleges that later that same day, Dwek went to PNC Bank’s Asbury Park branch and presented another $25 million check drawn on the same closed business account – the Corbett account – for deposit into the open SEM Realty account he controlled. PNC Bank personnel voided that check.

The Complaint alleges that Dwek made numerous misrepresentations to PNC Bank personnel in furtherance of his scheme. Among them, as part of his assurances that he was forwarding funds to cover his $22,790,000 overdraft, was a telephone call with a PNC Bank official in which Dwek directed another individual to assure the bank official that the money would be wired. Dwek’s account with PNC Bank remains as of today overdrawn by approximately $20,034,157.

The bank fraud charge against Dwek carries a maximum term of 30 years in prison and a maximum fine of $1 million.

Christie and Valentin credited Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Red Bank Resident Agency, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Leslie G. Wiser, Jr., and investigators from the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office, with the investigation that led to today’s charges. The investigation also was assisted by investigators from the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, under the direction of Prosecutor Thomas F. Kelaher, and Brick Township Police Department, under the direction of Police Chief Ronald J. Dougard.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian R. Howe of the U.S. Attorney’s Special Prosecution’s Division in Newark.

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Defense Counsel:

Michael B. Himmel, Esq., Roseland