A Connecticut man was sentenced Wednesday for fraudulently obtaining over 100 gold coins and transporting them outside of Massachusetts. Â Â
William Dawson, 52, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman to five years of probation, with one year of home confinement, and ordered to pay restitution.
In April 2024, Dawson pleaded guilty to one count of interstate transportation of property taken by fraud. Dawson was arrested and charged in October 2023.
Dawson held himself out as a property buyer and reseller. Person-1 operated a home cleanout business in Massachusetts that sold property contained in decedent estates. In or around December 2022, Person-1 was retained by a decedent estate to clean out a residence in Shrewsbury, Mass.
In that home, Person-1 found 170 Queen Elizabeth II Canadian Gold Maple Leaf Coins, collectively worth approximately $290,000. With approval from the estate, Person-1 agreed to sell 120 of the gold coins to Dawson.
In January 2023, Dawson met with Person-1 in Millbury and purchased the 120 gold coins with two checks totalling $198,800.
However, Dawson had significantly less than $198,800 in the relevant bank account when he wrote the checks to Person-1.
Later that same day, Dawson called Person-1, falsely claiming that his car had been broken into and that the gold coins had been stolen. The next day, Dawson travelled to a pawn shop in Pawtucket, R.I. where he sold 43 of the gold coins in exchange for $80,442.
On several occasions in February 2023, Dawson travelled to a pawn shop in Cranston, R.I., where he sold 19 more of the gold coins in exchange for a total of approximately $35,094.
