Ponte Vedra man gets 6.5 years for wire fraud

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A 64-year-old Ponte Vedra man was sentenced Thursday to six years and six months in federal prison after ripping off a series of people, including close friends, through a series of bogus investment schemes, the U.S. Department of Justice announced in a news release.

Robert Hendricks, who was a licensed real estate broker, pleaded guilty in September to four counts of wire fraud.

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As part of his sentence, the court also entered a money judgment of more than $2.6 million, the proceeds of the charged criminal conduct. In addition, the court ordered Hendricks to pay more than $3.8 million in restitution.

According to court documents, Hendricks coaxed a couple he knew in 2014 to invest $300,000 in what he billed as a successful real estate venture. In reality, the money was used for his personal expenses.

Then in March 2016, Hendricks persuaded another friend to invest $200,000 in the development of Wawa convenience stores in Northeast Florida. Like the first case, the deal was too good to be true.

The next month, Hendricks received a nearly $500,000 wire transfer from a lender for a property transferred to him by a longtime friend, who was under the impression that Hendricks would pay for a cleanup of the property along with insurance. Instead, Hendricks took out a mortgage he did not repay, and the property was ultimately awarded to the lender at auction.

And in February 2017, Hendricks convinced someone else he held a stake in a holding company that owned a Home Depot location and got them to wire him nearly $400,000. Like the previous cases, Hendricks misled his investor — the holding company did not actually own a Home Depot.