UPDATED 2:30 pm / 4:30 pm
The APP has reported that real estate tycoon Solomon Dwek was arrested at 7 a.m. today at his Ocean Township home on charges of bank fraud. Dwek, 33, who was accused by PNC Bank of bouncing a $25 million check he wrote on April 24, was arrested by a law enforcement task force that included members of the FBI, the Monmouth and Ocean County prosecutor’s offices; according to FBI special agent Steve Siegal. Dwek will appear this afternoon in U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, Newark.
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The APP is reporting that 10 million bond was posted this afternoon.The bond was secured by $3 million in real estate that was put up by his mother-in-law and sister-in-law, both from Union. Dwek appeared in court with his father, prominent Ocean Township Rabbi Issac Dwek, and other family members….Dwek faces up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine if he is convicted of the two charges.Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Howe had asked Magistrate Judge Mark Falk to make the $10 million bond fully secured by $10 million in cash or land, saying the potential lengthy prison term makes Dwek a “flight risk.”Michael Himmel, Dwek’s attorney, said Dwek was not a flight risk because he has deep roots in the community….If there is ever a situation of someone who is not a flight risk, it is Mr. Dwek,” Himmel told Falk.Dwek had to surrender his passport and his travel is limited to within New Jersey.
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The federal complaint details new misrepresentations the bank says the 33-year-old real estate investor made to PNC on April 25.After he got the bank to accept a $25,212,076.35 check that would bounce even as Dwek wired most of those funds to pay off debts, and after Dwek was unable to deposit yet a second phony check for $25 million, he had a person he identified as “J.S.” get on the phone with PNC and say the money to back up the first check would be wired.The next day, April 26, Dwek “admitted to the PNC Bank official that the individual he claimed was “J.S.” on the telephone the previous day was not, in fact, “J.S.”, the complaint says.Dwek had used $22.2 million of the initial $25 million to pay off loans owed HSBC Bank….He later repeatedly assured PNC Bank that he was working with HSBC to return that $22.2 million to PNC.But HSBC Bank said He never asked for money to be returned. Instead he contacted the bank on April 26 “for the sole purpose of confirming that HSBC received the $20 million wire transfer from PNC Bank the previous day…