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Arrest is Made in the Strange Saga of “Rebecca”

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In a twist that Alfred Hitchcock would have loved,  Mark C. Hotton, a former Long Island stockbroker, was arrested on Monday morning and charged with fraud for creating fictitious investors for the troubled Broadway musical, “Rebecca.” He did so in order to collect tens of thousands of dollars in commissions for raising the money. The musical epic is based on the 1938 Daphne Du Maurier tale, which Hitchock later made into a 1940 Oscar-winning classic about a wealthy British gentleman’s dead wife who haunts her successor. “Dead people” also haunt Hotton’s alleged machinations, which began last Spring. The $12 million musical, produced by Ben Sprecher and Louise Forlenza, had to postpone its original Broadway opening in March due to a shortfall in its capitalization. Enter Mark C. Hotton, stage right, who promised the producers that he would fill the $4.5 million gap so that the show could open this fall. As revealed in an AP report about the announcement of the arrest,  Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, said, “Mark Hotton perpetrated stranger-than-fiction frauds both on and off-Broadway. Hotton concocted a cast of characters to invest in a major musical — investors who turned out to be deep-pocketed phantoms. To carry out the alleged fraud, Hotton faked lives, faked companies, even staged a faked death, pretending that one imaginary investor had suddenly died from Malaria.”

The news of that “sudden death” of  a South African businessman named “Paul Abrams” — from malaria, no less — surfaced last month just as “Rebecca” was slated to begin rehearsals in New York. In fact, the Broadhurst Theatre, one of Broadway’s most prestigious houses, had been gutted to accommodate the show’s lavish sets, which included the burning of Manderley, the English manse in which the gothic tale of Max de Winter, his new bride, and the mysterious housekeeper Mrs. Danvers takes place. Sprecher, apparently unaware that he was the victim of massive fraud, announced that he had lined up other investors (real ones, this time) to take up the slack and that the show, in that timeless tradition, would go on. However, a mysterious e-mail was then sent to Sprecher’s potential new investors warning of a legal sticky-wicket if they were to proceed. The producer, insisting that his computer had been hacked by the e-mailer, called foul. By then, it was too late and the whole enterprise imploded. Ronald Russo, Sprecher’s attorney, said that his client “is extremely gratified that Mr. Hotton has been taken into custody.”

If he is found guilty of wire fraud, Hotton could face up to forty years in prison. According to Bharara, the Long Island businessman had used similar tactics in the past to collect promised commissions. The “Rebecca” producers seemed to have paid him over $30,000 against his eight percent commission before the fraud was discovered. FBI Acting Assistant Director-in-Charge Charles Galligan,  colorfully described the stranger-than-fiction scheme. “Mark Hotton wrote, directed and starred in the work of fiction he took to Broadway. He even allegedly played the supporting characters — phantom investors who existed only in fictitious emails and Hotton’s bogus assertions about them.”

There still remains the question of who sent the “mysterious” e-mails which scared off the new real-life investors and thus scuttled “Rebecca” — at least for this season. Sprecher says that he is committed not only to finding out the culprit but also to bringing the musical eventually to Broadway. Whether that is even remotely possible depends on how the producer manages to handle all the monies that are due to various creditors and investors for having brought “Rebecca” to this abortive end. But whether or not Sprecher can fulfill all the various fiduciary duties, it would seem that he is sitting atop one of the most fascinating schemes to hit Broadway since Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, those lovable hucksters of Mel Brooks’s “The Producers.” There is a possibility that Hotton may be joining them in a chorus of “Prisoners of Love.” And we just might eventually see a play or musical about the whole titillating mess. But as Max is fond of saying, “Don’t forget to bring the checkie.”

Image: A scene from “Rebecca”/© VBW, Alexander Ch.Wulz, Vienna, 2006


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