FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A Fort Lauderdale man is facing two felonies after a former Major League Baseball player and his wife accused him of swindling them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by promising them millions in a fraudulent investment scheme.
Lonnie Wayne Moss, 54, is facing counts of first-degree grand theft and money laundering. He was booked into the Broward County jail on Thursday.
Recommended Videos
While a Fort Lauderdale Police Department probable cause affidavit doesn’t identify the victims, a Broward civil suit filed in late July naming Moss and others does: Longtime MLB outfielder Todd Hollandsworth and his wife, Marci.
Hollandsworth, 51, was the National League’s Rookie of the Year in 1996 while playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers and was a member of the then-Florida Marlins’ 2003 World Series championship team. It was his only season with the Marlins; he also played for teams including the Atlanta Braves, Colorado Rockies and Chicago Cubs.
He retired in 2006 and would later become a television commentator for the Cubs and Marlins.
According to the civil and criminal court documents, Todd and Marci Hollandsworth invested $325,000 with Lonnie and his wife, Misty, with whom they had a “personal relationship,” on Feb. 28, 2022, signing a contract with a company called Arpad, LLC.
Moss, a “friend and financial investor,” promised the Hollandsworths a $12.5 million return paid over the course of 10 months, the court documents state, but the former major leaguer and his wife ended up with $0.
Police said Moss kept in touch with the couple but “sent several text messages pushing the date further back.”
Lonnie and Misty Moss, the civil suit claims, continually told the couple that the returns would be “paid out next week.”
The lawsuit claims the Mosses never intended to invest the funds.
FLPD investigator Kimberley Figone, who works in the agency’s Economic Crimes Unit, wrote in the affidavit that a check of Moss’ bank records revealed that he spent more than $75,000 on clothing, travel and dinners in just the month of March 2022.
Moss, Figone wrote, wired the rest of the money to a West Palm Beach investment firm operated by an “unknown person.”
The Hollandsworths are seeking nearly $1 million in damages in the civil suit, which claims fraud, civil theft and breach of contract.
Local 10 News contacted the Hollandsworths’ attorney seeking comment on their behalf Friday morning and had not received a response as of the article’s publication.
Moss, who appeared in court Friday morning and whose bond was listed at $250,000, did not have an attorney listed on file in either the criminal or civil case; Broward court records did not show any criminal charges pending for his wife as of Friday.
Read the lawsuit: