First State Depository owner convicted of fraud after clients’ gold and silver went missing

A federal jury on Thursday took less than four hours to convict Robert Leroy Higgins of West Chester on all criminal fraud and tax evasion charges related to his former business, First State Depository, and related companies, where officials say precious metals worth over $50 million have gone missing.

Higgins, who had been free on the condition he not leave the area, was taken into custody after the verdict by U.S. Marshals for transport to a federal prison. The decision was reached after an eight-day criminal trial before federal Judge Maryellen Noreika in Wilmington.

Luby Sidoff, an investor who traveled from Florida for the trial, said he was “relieved in one way, but angry in another, because we [still] want to know where the money and metals are, for all of us who are his customers and trusted him with our life savings.”

“I am hopeful the conviction will provide at least some relief” to more than 900 Higgins victims, said Kelly Crawford, the court-appointed receiver who took over First State when the founder was first charged two years ago. “The theft has left so many elderly persons without their life savings and struggling to make ends meet.”

He’s preparing to send them checks totaling $2.6 million, less than 5% of the missing money, raised by selling unclaimed coins from Higgins’ vaults.

Higgins was convicted on four counts of fraud and 15 of tax evasion from his activities at the gold and silver storage companies he founded at a razor-wire-ringed facility in northeast Wilmington. Higgins promised to store small investors’ gold and silver bars and coins in safety, so they could list these precious metals in their retirement accounts without paying annual income taxes, as they would if they kept the items at their homes.

During the trial, two of Higgins’ children, former employees, and half a dozen investors testified against him. Testimony detailed Higgins’ removal of clients’ gold and silver from their deposit boxes; the pretexts he gave in declining to return coins and gold bars when clients asked; his false reports promising their previous metals were safe in Delaware after he had looted them; and other steps he took to cover up his thefts. In some cases, metals were taken from customers, and given to others demanding repayment.

Crawford, a Texas lawyer, took over the business as the court-appointed receiver in 2022. FBI and IRS agents and the federal Commodities Futures Trading Commission investigated Higgins’ management of over $100 million in gold and silver after investors complained they couldn’t get their metals back.

Agents testified they found empty boxes for hundreds of customers from across the U.S., representing about half of what clients had sent to Higgins for safekeeping.

Prosecution witnesses testified that Higgins took the money to pay for tropical family vacations, private-school tuition and other “lifestyle” amenities, and to pay other clients. Despite taking money from the business, he told the IRS he was unemployed or retired.

In 2022, investigators found two pounds of gold, worth around $72,000 at the time, in a ceiling of his suburban home, but most of the gold and silver bars and collectors’ coins have not been found, and investors say they fear they won’t get most of their money back.

Higgins was arraigned on criminal fraud and tax charges that were filed in a grand jury indictment earlier this year, expanding and updating charges first filed in 2022.

According to the grand jury report, Higgins’ Delaware gold and silver storage businesses ran out of operating funds in 2012, but despite operating losses and two personal bankruptcies, the precious-metals dealer was able to attract new clients and stay in business for 10 more years by stealing coins and bullion that 1,000 customers had entrusted to the vaults at his Wilmington warehouse.

Higgins faces up to 45 years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines. Defendants are typically sentenced within four months of trial, according to court spokesperson Kimberlynn Reeves.

Higgins’ lawyer, Jeremy Gonzalez Ibrahim of Chadds Ford, was not available for comment on whether Higgins is likely to appeal after sentencing.

In closing arguments Thursday morning, defense lawyer Gonzalez Ibrahim sought to cast doubt on testimony from Higgins’ son, Eric, and his company’s former manager, Danielle Leins, who had implicated Higgins under immunity protection, ensuring they would not be charged for participating in his crimes.

The key witnesses may themselves have been complicit, Gonzalez Ibrahim said, urging jurors not to “take their testimony at face value.” He portrayed the senior Higgins as “trying to help” clients who struggled to get their silver and gold back, often without success.

“I’m not suggesting the situation was perfect,” Gonzalez Ibrahim added. But he insisted Robert Higgins was “doing his job and trying to correct” clients’ problems. He noted that prosecutors presented no evidence showing what Higgins did with more than a small percentage of the money the government said is missing. “There are no yachts.”

Prosecutor Alexander Ibrahim called it “a massive fraud to pay consumers with other consumers’ metals,” or not at all, “to finance [Higgins’] lifestyle.” .

Potential clients who hoped to avoid a drop in stock values by buying gold and silver were directed to First State on lists of gold and silver depositories provided by retirement planners and gold promoters. Delaware, one of a handful of states that do not impose a retail sales tax, is host to several precious-metals depository businesses.

Unlike other Delaware precious-metals depositories associated with banks, First State was not regulated as a financial institution and was not subject to close examination, state officials told The Inquirer.

In final remarks, Assistant U.S. Attorney Edmond Falgowski rejected the defense suggestion that the government’s witnesses may have been part of the problem. Higgins “was always short of money,” Falgowski said.

Higgins “blamed others” instead of admitting responsibility, Falgowski concluded.