Beverly man accused of swindling over $500K from local residents

SALEM – A lawsuit has been filed against a Beverly man who admitted swindling 10 local residents out of over $500,000 in an investment market scam, by an auctioneer who says he owes him over $500,000.The complaint filed in Superior Court by Frank C. Kaminski of Beverly accuses Michael M. Abbot, 52, of 1 Ellis Square, 4 Essex St., Unit 3B, of failing to pay a promissory note of $570,000 with interest.The principal amount of the debt owed has not been paid. It was to be paid last October with $141,750 in interest, according to the complaint.Kaminski maintains that Peter J. Caten, also named as a defendant in the complaint, is the trustee of the Abbot Reserve Trust and delivered to Kaminski a security agreement whereby he granted him a security interest in the rare wine collection held by the trust, worth over $5 million dollars.Kaminski believes that Olde Center Ventures, a third party named in the complaint, has obtained a judgment against Abbot Reserve Trust for $3,500,000 and in order to satisfy its judgment, they are attempting to levy the wine collection and that it will be auctioned by Sotheby in New York City.Kaminski wants a judge to intercede and issue a temporary restraining order with a permanent injunction to follow to stop Abbott Reserve Trust and Olde Center Ventures from selling the wine collection. He also wants the court to place a $1 million dollar attachment on the wine collection until the case can be resolved.Abbot pleaded guilty last August in Superior Court to 10 counts of fraudulent sales of securities, 10 counts of being an unregistered broker-dealer and three counts of failure to file tax returns.He was given a one-year suspended jail sentence with seven years of probation and ordered to pay $400,000 in fines and approximately $526,500 in restitution by Judge Howard J. Whitehead.The criminal charges are between August 2000 and June 2005, when Abbot solicited and received more than $526,500 from 10 victim investors who gave him money upon the false pretense that he would invest the funds into companies such as Google, AskJeeves.com, Western Wireless, Sirius Satelite, Lucent Technologies and Motorola, Inc.But instead, he held the money for himself and lied to them about the success of their investments and used the cash to pay for his rent and purchase things for himself.Abbot’s victims included a woman who had a business in Peabody and invested nearly $90,000; a Lynnfield couple who invested $125,000; a retiree living in Florida who invested $25,000; five Beverly men and a Lexington man who invested amounts ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 each.At some point, the clients suspected a scam and began asking for their investment money back and the investigation by the Attorney General’s office began.Abbot has several larceny charges still pending against him.His next scheduled court date on the remaining criminal cases is Friday, Feb. 15 in Salem Superior Court.