A New Hampshire man who was arrested and extradited back to Broward County was jailed on Wednesday following accusations he posed as a partner in a collection agency but kept the money he was hired to recover.
Kenneth Patrick Boland, 53, is charged with grand theft for disappearing with more than $50,000 he allegedly collected from a construction company on behalf of a demolition company, court records showed.
Ilya Frankovitch Torres, 52, was arrested in Coconut Creek in March, also on a grand theft charge.
According to the arrest records, Boland and Torres were listed as executives at the Boca Raton-based Kline, Schwartz and Associates, and the Fort Lauderdale-based IFT & Assoc. Inc. collection agencies. Boland went by the name Kevin Kline. Torres had a dozen aliases.
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The agency was hired in 2019 by the New Jersey-based demolition company’s owner who lived in Plantation. She had tried to collect more than $100,000 from the client and the lawsuit got too expensive so she turned to Boland and Torres, the report stated.
The woman – whose company and personal name were redacted from the report – agreed to give them 10% of what was recovered.
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Boland, who lived in Tamarac at the time, managed to recover $50,209 and deposited it in a Plantation bank account with a promise to mail two checks to the woman, court records showed.
Before long, the money, Boland and Torres were gone. It turns out Torres had lived in Plantation about a block from the bank.
A private investigator was hired, and he found the collection agency’s Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale offices empty and with rent owed, police said.
Boland remained in the Broward County Jail Friday on a $5,000 bond. Torres was released from jail on a $5,000 bond the day after his March 5 arrest, records show.
