Man living quietly at Vegas retirement home was hiding from cops, Florida sheriff says

UPDATE: Robert “Bob” Newsholme died at a hospice facility in Las Vegas before he could be transported to Florida for trial, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office reported Nov. 19. He fell ill the day Flagler County deputies came to pick him up in Vegas, and doctors diagnosed his condition as terminal. He was transferred to a hospice care facility and died Nov. 8, 2024, officials said.

The original story is below.

A Florida businessman accused of swiping “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from clients was discovered living incognito at a non-profit retirement home in Las Vegas, according to investigators.

The 68-year-old man was arrested Wednesday, Aug. 7, and charged with nine counts of grand theft and one count of organized scheme to defraud, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

Victims numbered more than 100, all of them clients of Flagler Tax Service, the sheriff’s office said.

“Detectives ... discovered that (he) took money from clients to pay their personal or business income taxes and never gave that money to the IRS. They also found that (he) was not a certified public accountant as most of his clients believed he was,” the sheriff’s office said.

The suspect disappeared in 2021, but was tracked to Nevada.

“An in-depth investigation determined that (he) was residing in a non-profit independent living facility for seniors, where he was attempting to avoid detection,” the sheriff’s office said.

Details of what became of the money have not been revealed.

A mugshot shows the suspect wore glasses, and had a scruffy beard and shoulder-length gray hair when caught.

It’s suspected he lived only a short time at the seniors facility, after barely escaping detectives trying to question him at a previous home in Las Vegas, officials said.

He was being held in a Nevada jail, awaiting extradition to Florida, officials said.

The two-year-old case was made more complicated when the Internal Revenue Service determined it would not pursue charges “because of a federal technicality,” Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said in the release.

Staly decided not to give up, assigning his detectives to the case.

“After a yearlong investigation that included examining all previous complaints and reviewing banking, credit card, and federal tax records, detectives were able to determine (he) had defrauded victims of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” the sheriff’s office said.

This story was originally published August 9, 2024 at 4:21 AM with the headline "Man living quietly at Vegas retirement home was hiding from cops, Florida sheriff says."