Washington Post – Frank L. Cowles Jr. is known in the Northern Virginia business community as the owner of car dealerships and a founding director of Virginia Commerce Bank in Arlington. Now, at age 76, he is facing allegations of a criminal conspiracy to defraud an Illinois hedge fund out of $25 million.
Cowles was arrested at his Scottsville horse farm last week and released on $1 million bail, said Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago. Cowles made his first appearance in U.S. District Court in Chicago on Thursday.
In a criminal complaint filed by Fitzgerald on Tuesday, Cowles was accused of lying to a hedge fund manager, who was not identified, about the nature of a $25 million investment. According to the complaint, Cowles and two associates induced the hedge fund manager to make the investment, promising 10 percent profit per week in a deal that they claimed was being overseen by a Federal Reserve administrator.
