Main Line investment manager is charged with stealing millions from his clients

Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia on Friday filed fraud charges against Scott Mason of Gladwyne, who operated Blue Bell-based Rubicon Wealth Management for nearly 30 years.

Echoing private complaints filed by a string of Mason’s former clients last year, the government says Mason, 66, took money from clients’ accounts to finance his Main Line lifestyle and lied when they asked where he had placed their millions.

Rubicon, an SEC-registered investment adviser, managed $231 million for around 115 clients as of March. The government says that he defrauded 13 of those clients out of at least $17 million. He faces charges of wire fraud, securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, and filing false tax returns.

The maximum possible sentence is 80 years’ imprisonment and a $6.7 million fine, though penalties for people convicted of securities fraud are usually much less.

Mason’s lawyer, Michael J. Rinaldi, declined to comment.

Also Friday, the federal Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil complaint in Philadelphia accusing Mason of securities and investment adviser fraud and asked the court to order him to return more than $20 million in “ill-gotten gains,” plus civil penalties.

Rubicon advertised itself as a firm focused on publicly traded stocks and bonds. According to prosecutors, clients gave Mason instructions on how to invest their money through accounts held mostly at two large mainstream investment custodians, SEI Private Trust Co., based in Oaks, and Fidelity Investments of Boston.

But, according to prosecutors, starting in 2016, Mason began moving clients’ funds without their permission out of those accounts.

Also that year, Mason, who was Rubicon’s owner, president, and investment adviser, took on the additional role of chief compliance officer, making him the watchdog overseeing his own actions, according to the SEC complaint.

By 2024, prosecutors said he had taken more than $17 million from 13 clients. One client, Star Sitron, a relative of Mason’s by marriage, had more than $3.2 million taken in 30 transfers from 2019 to 2023.

Prosecutors say Mason used this money to pay for “international travel, country club membership dues, credit card bill payments” and to join other clients in buying a miniature golf course, Jen’s Links, in Barnegat Light, N.J.

Some of the funds were used to repay another client, Stanley Tulin, a retired insurance millionaire, from whom Mason had been stealing since 2014, according to the charging document.

For example, Tulin told Mason to transfer $5 million to pay off a bank loan and another $5 million into a Tulin family trust. Mason is accused of taking the money, lying that he had made the transfers, and forging documents to confirm one transfer. Tulin ended up owing $1.5 million in unexpected interest for the loan Mason failed to pay.

Sitron and Tulin are among Rubicon investors who filed civil fraud complaints against Mason in Montgomery County court last year. Sitron also sued SEI, the account custodian, for not stopping Mason from taking her money. SEI has denied wrongdoing.

According to the SEC, Mason’s fraud ended around 2023 when a bank holding some of his client’s funds discovered that a client hadn’t approved Mason’s withdrawal. After that, another firm terminated its relationship with Rubicon.

According to prosecutors, Mason especially targeted “clients with whom he had a longstanding relationship and who trusted him implicitly,” including friends and family members, as well as those who had come into money recently from inheritances or the sales of their businesses.

Sometimes he forged their signatures, according to prosecutors. Sometimes he “lied to the clients” and told them that he was using the money to buy short-term bonds.

According to prosecutors, Mason moved client money to bank accounts at JPMorgan Chase of his own side business, Orchard Park Real Estate Holdings LLC, which owned student housing in Geneva, N.Y., near Hobart College, Mason’s alma mater, where he served as a trustee.

But, prosecutors say, Mason used the money “primarily to finance his lifestyle and to repay his debts.”

According to clients, alumni publications, court documents, and other records, Mason golfed at Squires Golf Club, an all-male club in Ambler favored by developers and sports multimillionaires; invested with NewSpring Capital, one of the region’s largest private-equity firms; summered on Long Beach Island and bought investment properties there, including the mini-golf course; and endowed the position of head coach for the varsity hockey team at Hobart College.

Mason also faces federal tax charges for failing to report in his income statements the clients’ money he had taken.

In a Montgomery County civil court hearing last fall, Rinaldi, Mason’s lawyer, said Mason was cooperating in getting investors back some of their money but warned it “won’t be close” to what some of them had invested.

“My clients welcome the criminal charges,” said Benjamin R. Picker, a lawyer for Sitron and some of the other investors. “Mr. Mason’s misconduct has severely undermined” the clients’ finances.