South Windsor man accused of defrauding $675,000 from grandmother
Jun. 24—A South Windsor man already in state custody on charges of burglarizing homes in his neighborhood is now facing federal charges that he defrauded about $675,000 from his grandmother by persuading her to give him tuition money for colleges he wasn't attending and to "invest" money through a fictitious professor.
A federal grand jury in New Haven on June 7 indicted the man — Douglas Senerth, who is 32 and has listed an address on Rimfield Drive — on three counts of wire fraud. Each count carries up to 20 years in prison, although federal sentencing guidelines rarely recommend sentences anywhere near that for nonviolent frauds.
Senerth was to be arraigned this afternoon in a hearing to be held via the Zoom teleconferencing program before a judge in U.S. District Court in Hartford.
One of the key issues at the early stages of most federal criminal cases — whether to release the defendant on bond or hold him without bond — is of little significance for now because Senerth is in state custody, held in lieu of $355,000 bond at the Hartford Correctional Center.
He is facing two burglary cases and four attempted burglary cases, all filed by South Windsor police, as well as a probation violation case tied to a conviction for conspiring to sell ammunition illegally in 2017.
The federal indictment alleges that Senerth defrauded his grandmother over about eight years, from 2011 to 2019. Her husband, who died in December 2016, also was a victim of the fraud, according to the indictment, which goes on to allege the following:
Because Senerth knew the couple was willing to fund his education, he told them that he was a student at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, from 2012 to 2019 and at the University of Oxford in England from 2012 to 2017. He was never a student at either, the indictment alleges.
His grandparents gave him more than $415,000 to finance his education, "related educational pursuits," and living expenses.
The indictment alleges that Senerth gave his grandmother fraudulent documents to corroborate his lie that he was a college student, including transcripts showing that he was a student in Assumption's honor program for political science.
Another such document was an April 2015 letter supposedly from the associate director of campus ministry saying Senerth had been a "good standing student" at Assumption for "a little over three years now" and that "he has made the Deans List every single semester."
The indictment alleges that Senerth also created fraudulent Gmail accounts to impersonate an Assumption administrator and an Oxford professor, Dr. John Reed, who supposedly ran a university-connected "Oxonian" investment fund.
Senerth used the Reed persona to fraudulently obtain at least $260,000 from his grandparents in an investment scam, according to the indictment.
Senerth's grandmother received a purported email from "Reed" claiming "the fund has been yielding a steady 11.75%." Other emails made excuses for why "Reed" couldn't provide the grandmother with information promptly or meet with her.
For updates on Glastonbury, and recent crime and courts coverage in North-Central Connecticut, follow Alex Wood on Twitter: @AlexWoodJI1, Facebook: Alex Wood, and Instagram: @AlexWoodJI.
