Monday, October 22, 2012
'Rebecca' plot gains detail
Variety: The arrest early Monday morning of Long Island stockbroker Mark Hotton -- the alleged middleman in the fraud that scuttled the Broadway musical "Rebecca" -- has shed some light on a recurring question among legit-world observers: What could possibly be in it for the perpetrator? Not much, the answer seems to be, based on details of the scheme revealed along with the notice of Hotton's arrest.
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This was a very interesting article. I have been following the rebecca plot for a while now and have been wondering if it was all a publicity stunt. I know from reading the book, that the story is full of mystery and suspense, so I was curious if the show was simply playing of that concept to drum up interest. Now that someone has been arrested, that is clearly not the case. I do with there was some type of statement from the defendant regarding why he did what he did. From the sound of the article, his plan would not have earn him a great sum of money in the con-artist world. So they seemed surprised by his actions. What ever his motives were, at least he was caught so now all this drama surrounding Rebecca will all be over.
Details and finally an arrest in this scandal. I don;t think that this will be the last arrest that Rebecca sees. Every week I seem to ask the same question which everyone also asks, What did Hotton hope to gain from this? I wonder if he has done this before and to what extent, because he clearly didn't think this through. I wonder who is liable in a situation like this and who will have to end up paying the production team and the actors and anyone who signed contracts and have already done work.
I wonder if anyone will invest in this production after the court case and the scandal die down. I doubt many people will rush to work on it after this however.
Well this is interesting, as I've been following this story since it showed up in the real world blog. I would love to see the rest of the details. They make a good point by saying there is very little in embezzling for the middleman...only 60000$ in this case. Also, it's sad to see a Broadway musical tank before getting, however I think because the culprit has been arrested, there is the chance that investors may try again, and get Rebecca back on Broadway.
Is this the end of REBECCA or not? Unfortunately, I think it is. The stigma and perception of the musical is tarnished thanks to the scandal. If you were an investor, would you want to invest thousands or millions of dollars in a production that had a history of a fundraising scandal? All major productions need funding, and unless they can perhaps locate investors who believe in the work despite its history or send the show to regional theatres and colleges, hoping it will gain momentum and make a natural move to Broadway, I think the show's future in the US is dead. And I wanted so badly to see it too. It looked promising.
Wow this just goes to reinforce the fact that if you can not understand where the money comes from to fund your show you should look at the gig with skepticism. The system will never be able to detect fraud before it effects shows personnel and budgets. Fraud could not be stopped when it came to tyco or worldcom why are we surprised it happened on a broadway. Crooks and fraud is a staple of theatre history and the human race may have evolved technologically to the point where these scandals are hard to hide but we will never stop these type of events until there is no need for greed. In other words we will never stop this kind of behavior.
There is still a lot more going on here that has not been revealed. The man that was arrested had to have had a second motive, whatever it is, to create this money laundering fraud scheme that had no way out. I expect we will continue to hear about it.
I think one potential fallout from this may become more regulation of who a producer is and what can be done with money for production. That could be very disastrous to commercial theater, causing, as Jamila said, less people to invest in it.
This has the potential of becoming the new "spiderman" in the fact that I dont think we will stop hearing about "Rebecca's" woes. I have to agree with Brian that there is something they're not telling us. Why would someone create a con with no way out for that little of money? They were going to know as soon as that $4 million did not show up. There has to be something else has this guy's motive. I'm still wondering if Ben Sprecher is completely innocent.
I was hoping this weeks articles would bring an end to the story. I'm still a little confused as to why he did it though. The money he gained in fees would be reason enough if he could have done it without being caught. Maybe he is just a criminal mind as opposed to a criminal mastermind. It seems like he had a plan but was just kind of making it up as he went along. Maybe he was just doing it for fun, while trying to pull of his big heist this was just a side job. Good to know it has been resolved I hope nothing like this happens anytime soon.
I wonder if our friend Mark Horton was acting alone. He really has very little reason to try to pull this scheme off. Was the 15,000 upfront? was that enough to put in all this work, not an easy rouse. Its the worst ponzi scam of all time.
I agree with Brian, I think there is more here that is still to be uncovered. Is it possible that one of the producers of Rebecca hired Mark Horton to "find funding" knowing that it was going to be fake. Possibly the producer could by some time, interest and funding before anyone realized that the original backer was not real.
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