It looked to Shaheed Bailey like a ketchup stain.
Two months prior, he reached out to Fredrick D. Scott via LinkedIn and Twitter on behalf of his startup, McChesney Street Capital, LLC, an Orange, N.J.-tech-based lending company which offers an alternative to small businesses and entrepreneurs that have a hard time getting traditional bank lending. They were in need of capital, and Mr. Scott — who in media, his website and LinkedIn pages presented himself as a millionaire investor — appeared to be their ace in the hole; after exchanging dozens of emails, texts and phone calls, Mr. Scott and Mr. Bailey agreed to meet.
But as the pair zigzagged through the streets of Orange, South Orange and Irvington N.J., on Monday, June 3 — during which Mr. Scott sought to convince Mr. Bailey’s fiancee, Stacey, to invest all of their savings with him — Mr. Bailey’s skepticism found its emotional core in the most unlikely of places: a grimy stain.
Indeed, by Tuesday, Scott was arrested on charges he used his investment firm to scam investors , using the funds to pay for expensive dinners, clothing and technology according to the New York Daily News.
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