A man who befriended people through little league baseball convinced them to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in his medical products company and then used their money to pay bills and buy booze, authorities said.

James William Downing, 46, of Port St. Lucie was arrested on securities transaction fraud charges.

Downing, who had previous security and wire fraud convictions, pocketed a total of $353,250 from a handful of trusting investors and then spent $45,518 on cars, bills, food and liquor, according to the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators suspect more victims have yet to come forward.

Anyone with information can call Detective Sgt. Frank Pellegrini at (772) 462-3602.

~ michael_laforgia@pbpost.com

This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Crime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.