THE MAGICIAN
Bob Matthews’ final act.
interview by Bruce A. Percelay
Bob Matthews always fancied himself as a magician. He would delight in showing people how through the force of the kinetic energy in his hands, he could bend spoons without touching them. He enthralled his guests with his dazzling card tricks, all the while wearing his Cheshire cat grin. But Bob Matthews’ most enduring magical skill was his ability to make people’s money disappear, a craft he honed during his thirty-year business career.
From his imposing mansion on Cliff Road, Bob Matthews was Nantucket’s Jay Gatsby. He and his actress wife, Mia—who happened to grace the first cover of this publication—lived as high a profile existence as one could on this otherwise restrained island. Today, Nantucket’s ultimate raconteur is now facing federal prison more as a racketeer. For as long as people have known Matthews, he was always one step ahead of either the authorities or some legal entanglement, but he was finally tripped up by a consortium of Chinese investors who put up $50 million to finance his failed hotel venture in Palm Beach. It was reported that Matthews used proceeds from the investment to fund a yacht and further gild his lavish lifestyle.
Back in 2016, the Matthews’ lavish Palm Beach mansion was featured in a splashy photo spread in Traditional Home magazine, which called the property “bits of Venice, Versailles, Corinth and Casablanca.” Two years later, the home was on the bankruptcy auction block.
In late April, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut John H. Durham announced that Matthews pleaded guilty “to conspiracy, money laundering and tax evasion offenses related to multiple schemes to defraud foreign investors and financial institutions.” Those charges alone could land him behind bars for forty-three years. Prior to striking a plea deal with the DA, Matthews was facing a total of 325 years in jail. His glamorous wife, Mia, was also arrested on charges of income tax evasion and was awaiting her fate at press time, but she could also be eligible for time away. Though the story of Matthews’ fraud and future in prison is shocking, for those who know the lore of Bob Matthews, this is but a final chapter in a long saga of deceit and playing cat and mouse with legal authorities.
It all started when Matthews reportedly purloined an alleged $5 million from his then-fiancée, the daughter of the inventor of Rollerblades. Matthews parlayed his ill-gotten gains into a real estate empire that would ultimately enrich him while causing financial and personal disaster to those around him. Style and a flair for the dramatic were Matthews’ stock and trade, and he would leave those who were not wise to his ways often breathless and in awe.
As a young real estate developer, he once rented a helicopter and landed on the lawn of the city hall in Waterbury, Connecticut, to meet the mayor and discuss ways in which he could help revitalize the small town. Mayor Joseph Santopietro would ultimately be imprisoned on corruption charges, a fate other politicians met after their dealings with Matthews. With his firm handshake, hand-tailored suits and Tony Robbins-like energy, Matthews had a personality that could fill a room and mesmerize a crowd. Having worked his way up from a small-town mayor to the governor of Connecticut, Matthews became a major landlord to the state with sweetheart deals that defied economic reason. His newly found wealth put him in large homes but also put the Connecticut governor in the “big house” in which he served time in federal prison for his questionable dealings with Matthews. But Matthews’ impact on the lives of those who became entangled in his world would only worsen.
In an audacious and spectacular attempt to score big, Matthews bought a stolen copy of the Bill of Rights for $200,000 and then tried to flip it for a $5 million profit. After being hounded by the FBI, Matthews had to give up his dream of converting the document into fast cash, but according to those in the know, he ended up causing the heart attack death of his partner and well-known Nantucket art dealer, Wayne Pratt. The details surrounding Matthews’ purchase and ultimate sale of the document to a Washington museum read like a John le Carré novel and painted a picture of a person whose fearless brashness knew no limits.
Matthews and his wife, Mia, became high-profile summer residents of Nantucket, where he lived in a Cliff Road mansion that became synonymous with lavish parties and A-list guests. After a particular dinner where he hosted Bill and Hillary Clinton, Matthews mysteriously became ill and went into a coma for more than a week. Rumors swirled that he had been poisoned, but the exact cause of his illness, like many aspects of Matthews’ life, remains a mystery.
After surviving his near brush with death, he once brought a group of Tibetan monks to his home, so he might seek some type of cosmic redemption. The monks performed their ritual sand mandala, whereby they create magnificent designs out of sand, and proceeded to take the finished work of art and empty it into the sea in a statement that life is about the experience and not the material. Having totally missed their message, Matthews took out a wad of cash from his pocket and begged the monks to have their creation sealed in polyurethane instead so he could permanently hang it on the wall. The juxtaposition of the spiritual monks sitting in Matthews’ lavish living room was striking, and one could only wonder what went through their minds as they pulled away from his highly leveraged home.
One of Matthews’ most spectacular acts of deception on Nantucket was his $40 million loan from Deutsche Bank to develop his Point Breeze Hotel and Club, which was to feature internationally known singing artists to entertain his members as they would dine on lobster tails and oysters. Having sold memberships in the hotel by telling prospects he had secured commitments from major players on the island, Matthews began to believe in his own dreams. The hotel was never finished, and the $40 million bank investment largely vanished into a $2.8 million foreclosure sale to the owners of the new Nantucket Hotel.
The Point Breeze collapse did not stop Matthews but instead seemed to motivate him to show the world that he was unaffected by the financial loss associated with his latest questionable venture. He decided to throw a fiftieth birthday party for himself at his Palm Beach home, Casa Bendita, with the theme of “Arabian Nights.” Arriving at the door of his 20,000 square-foot oceanfront villa, guests were greeted by belly dancers sitting atop live camels flanked on either side of a six-foot-wide, hand carved mahogany door. Entering the resplendent home, guests were ushered to the backyard and into a 5,000 square-foot maroon tent replete with oriental rugs, velvet sofas, hookah bars and exotic food stations. Entertainer Jim Belushi performed on stage in front of 350 of Matthews’ closest friends. The only people who were disgruntled over the spectacular $500,000 event were the caterers, bartenders and animal handlers, who according to reports in the
Palm Beach Post, sued Matthews for nonpayment.
On a glorious sunny Palm Beach day, federal authorities converged on Casa Bendita and arrested Matthews, who might soon be exchanging his fine-tailored clothing for an orange jumpsuit and an ankle bracelet. The 151-foot yacht he allegedly purchased courtesy of the Chinese investors and the collection of Rolls-Royces in his garage became instantly irrelevant.
On April 25th, Matthews pleaded guilty to conspiracy, money laundering and tax evasion. He was charged with twenty-one counts in an indictment that also brought charges against his wife and his business partners. In part, Matthews was charged with defrauding at least sixty foreign investors from China and Iran by way of the Federal EB-5 Visa program that he promised would provide them with a path to a Green Card. Additional details about the elaborate fraud emerged in the press, revealing that the investors were told that Donald Trump and Bill Clinton were advisors on the project, though that too was a lie. Ironically, those who invested in Matthews in search of economic freedom may have been the final straw in Matthews losing his.
There are those who have followed Matthews’ career who are convinced that he will once again escape prosecution in his Houdini-like tradition and yet again perform his special magic on federal authorities. But this time, he may have indeed pulled the last rabbit out of his hat, the final act in one of the most colorful white-collar criminal careers Nantucket has ever seen
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