Beverly man who bilked investors heads to prison

SALEM – Time ran out for Michael M. Abbot, the Beverly man who admitted swindling several local residents out of thousands of dollars in an investment market scam, and he was put in jail for a year for failing to pay a $400,000 fine.”Mr. Abbot has strung a lot of people along for a long time. It’s been a charade, and it’s time to bring down the curtain,” Salem Superior Court Judge Howard J. Whitehead said Monday as he found that Abbot had violated his agreement with the state to pay a $400,000 fine by Feb. 15.Abbot, 53, of 1 Ellis Square, 4 Essex St., Unit 3B, Beverly, who was raised with great wealth on an estate in Beverly Farms, was put in custody during a hearing last week to determine if he violated the terms of his plea agreement last November that called for him to pay the fine by Feb. 15.The agreement clearly specified that if he did not comply with all the terms of the agreement, he would be imprisoned for a year, insisted Assistant Attorney General Marc Jones.Abbot insisted last week that he only needed a little more time to explain his situation to the trustees of his assets, including a multi-million dollar wine collection.During the hearing Monday, defense lawyer Robert L. Sheketoff pleaded with Whitehead to let his client out of jail, put him on house arrest until Friday so he can contact the parties and produce, what Sheketoff says, is a $10 million dollar wine collection.Whitehead, very skeptical that the wine even exists, reminded Sheketoff that Abbot has had all those chances to show his assets since last summer, and has avoided paying the fine, borrowed money against the wine collection and pledged the wine twice.Jones kept insisting to Whitehead that Abbot violated the terms of the agreement and “still wants to scam the court,” as he asked for a year in jail. He reminded Whitehead that the commonwealth has waited over a month from the deadline date to get the money and still has not.Sheketoff said, “If it exists, we will find out, if not then I agree he should be put in jail.”He said his client is isolated in jail, can’t contact the necessary parties and only needs an access code to the facility where some of the very expensive wine is being stored.Earlier a judge ordered Abbot to produce the rare wine collection in a civil action and Abbot apparently showed them a facility, but he did not have access to the building.Sheketoff admittedly agreed that his client gives slightly different stories each time, but is adamant that he only needs until Friday to get access to the wine collection.”He has no passport, no license and nowhere to run,” Sheketoff said, while insisting it is not a “fraud.”But despite Sheketoff’s arguments, the judge was not convinced and said if Abbot comes up with the fine, a motion for a revise and revoke of the sentence can be filed and he will consider it.Abbot pleaded guilty last November to 10 counts of fraudulent sales of securities, 10 counts of being an unregistered broker-dealer and three counts of failing to file tax returns.In that sentence, Abbot received a suspended one-year jail sentence and seven years probation, with the conditions he be on house arrest for the first 18 months of his probation, monitored by an electronic bracelet, pay the $400,000 in fines by Feb. 15 and approximately $526,500 in restitution .Abbot also was sentenced Monday to a suspended two-and-one-half years in the House of Corrections and placed on seven years of probation on 10 remaining larceny charges he had not yet been sentenced on, but had also pleaded guilty to the charges in November.Among Abbot’s victims are a 73-year-old woman who owned a business in Peabody and invested 130,500 with him; a Lynnfield couple who invested $125,000 and who have also filed a civil suit against him; a Peabody woman who invested $81,000; a 74-year-old woman, now retired and living in Florida, who invested $25,000; and five Beverly men and a Lexington man who invested amounts ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 each.