Former Quincy real estate auctioneer Daniel J. Flynn III was sentenced to four years in prison for a nine-year fraudulent scheme in which more than 90 investors lost an estimated $21 million and contributed to the deaths of two victims, according to prosecutors.
Federal prosecutors had sought a 70-month sentence for the 54-year-old Flynn, former CEO of Quincy-based Daniel J. Flynn & Co. and a well-known figure in Boston College alumni and Boston-area charity circles. Flynn’s victims included hedge fund managers and well-connected businesspeople.
The scheme, which took place between 2007 and 2015, involved a variety of tactics including phony promissory notes and investments in a real estate fund that Flynn said would acquire distressed properties. Flynn pled guilty to nine counts of fraud in a plea agreement Feb. 1; he was sentenced on May 9.
One of the victims committed suicide after learning the extent of the scheme, prosecutors stated in a sentencing memorandum. Another died of heart failure after arguing with Flynn about money he was owed from the sale of a property in Dorchester that netted $451,000.
Flynn’s public defender submitted a brief containing 20 letters of support and vouching for his character, including those from Norfolk County Sheriff Michael Bellotti and Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch. The burden of sending five children to private schools and providing them the “lifestyle to which they had become accustomed” warped Flynn’s judgment, according to the filing.
“The thoughtful letters describe a man who is quick to help anyone in need in concrete ways; a talented fundraiser for charities throughout the community; a family man who wanted the best for his five children,” the memorandum stated. “Daniel Flynn’s story is more complicated and less sinister than the government’s simple tale of a swindling mastermind. This case is the story of a hard-working and generous member of the community who plainly lost his way and did not know how to turn things back around.”
The brief suggested that Flynn’s victims bore a share of the responsibility for the losses, citing a quote in a Boston Globe story that “you hear 15 percent (returns) and your ears start to wiggle. So I was being a jerk, in the sense that I was greedy.”
Prosecutors said they have been unable to identify any of Flynn’s assets and none of his victims are likely to be repaid.
Banker & Tradesman first reported Flynn’s alleged misconduct in 2013 after he defaulted on a series of civil suits from investors in Norfolk and Plymouth superior courts.
