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Background: STRF/STAR MAX/IPx 8/28/21 A Lord & Taylor location as seen in Eastchester, New York. Inset: Section from complaint against fraudster Russell Dwayne Lewis.
A huckster who deemed himself a rabbi billionaire astrologer with enough wealth to buy department store Lord & Taylor to the tune of $290 million has been sentenced to 8 ½ years in prison for scamming a widow out of millions.
Russell Dwayne Lewis, 57, who went by the aliases “Clifford Ari Getz,” “Clifford Ari Getz Cohen,” and “Ari Getz,” learned his fate in a courtroom in the Southern District of New York on Monday.
Prosecutors said the fraudster’s trail of lying, cheating and stealing was extensive and spanned years. They said he stole the identity of a man named Clifford Getz to pull off his schemes and also used a 13-year-old child’s social security number when forging documents. One forgery included a U.S. passport, court records indicate.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Lewis engaged in serial fraud that burned friends and business associates alike. One such scam targeted a widow with four children. Lewis met the widow in 2018 and duped her into believing he was an astrologer who could perform readings that would guide her financial decisions.
Lewis told the woman he was a billionaire, prosecutors said, and that “it was in her chart to get her mortgage paid off and to obtain financial freedom.”
Instead, she paid money hand over fist to Lewis, including an excess of $500,000.
With scams that began in 2016, prosecutors said he told his victims he had served in the U.S. military, spent time working at the CIA, was a rabbi, and that at various points in his life, he was also an astrologer who consulted the Los Angeles Police Department and at least one unnamed tech company billionaire.
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Lewis specifically told the widow he victimized that “he assisted in picking the jury for the O.J. Simpson trial based on his astrological charts,” court records show.
While Lewis did not admit to it, U.S. Attorney Williams said Lewis’ fraud extended to a brazen attempt to purchase the 200-year-old department store Lord & Taylor while it was plagued by bankruptcy in the summer of 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic raged.
The deal allegedly offered by Lewis seemed too good to be true for those scrutinizing his finances. According to Bloomberg, prosecutors said Lewis set off alarm bells by making such a grand offer for the bankrupt business to start. Nonetheless, bankers, investors and Lord & Taylor attorneys still spent weeks assessing the deal. Prosecutors said Lewis even had a fake letter mocked up saying his wealth was being held in a foreign bank.
The deal never came to pass, and this was one episode where Lewis didn’t cash in. After the deal fell apart, another company bought the department store’s online assets and intellectual property for $12 million.
In his plea agreement with prosecutors, Lewis did not admit to any element of the Lord & Taylor scheme but did admit to scamming several individuals, including the widow, of $3.8 million since 2016. In court on Monday, he agreed to repay those funds to his victims.
Though Lewis claimed he was worth $30 billion, had been raised in London and earned his Ph.D. and master’s degrees in neurophysics, mathematics and quantum physics, prosecutors say Lewis graduated from high school in Texas. His charisma was a key element in his scams, prosecutors noted.
According to the New York Post, when he appeared for sentencing Monday, Lewis did not speak because he had his jaw wired shut. His lawyer, Julie Rendelman, read a statement for Lewis into the record instead. She said the injury to his jaw happened after he fell in prison.
“In my heart, I say no one deserves a second chance in life,” Rendelman said as she read Lewis’ remarks to the court. “But I believe I can earn a second chance, and that is what I will work towards. I will continue to work on myself so I may earn my place someday back in society. I sincerely apologize to everyone I have hurt.”
