BOCA RATON, Fla.- A Boca Raton financial advisor pleaded guilty on Monday to faking his own death and communicating a false distress call.
Richard Winsor Ohrn, 46, was the center of an expensive and pointless U.S. Coast Guard rescue mission in 2015. He has agreed he owes $1 million in restitution for the cost of the search under the terms of his plea agreement.
He is under court order to sell his Estuary Drive home and to report all of his assets to the government before his sentencing in October. According to the county property appraiser, the home is valued at $550,000.
The maximum sentence for this offense is six years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. Records show Ohrn may be sentenced to probation and has been free on a $1 million bond since being charged in February.
Ohrn is a Navy veteran and worked as a bank financial advisor. He faked his death during a mental health crisis that was reportedly brought on by allegations that he was stealing from his elderly clients.
Wells Fargo Advisers did not press any charges, but they did fire him in 2012 and stripped him of his brokerage privileges.
A passing act found Ohrn’s rented SeaRay 185 Sport vessel anchored and abandoned six miles off Lake Worth Inlet on March 31, 2015.
At first investigators were treating the abandoned vessel as a crime scene due to blood being smeared around the vessel and a pair of broken eyeglasses.
The Coast Guard launched a three-day rescue through air and sea that cost more than $1 million. Nothing was found and the effort ended on April 2nd, said court records.
10 days later Ohrn showed up in Palm Beach County. When questioned he, “admitted to faking his disappearance, stating that he decided to ‘just go away’ due to his anxiety,” according to his plea agreement reported by Sun Sentinel.
Ohrn had been staying at an apartment in Albany, GA that was under his nephew’s name. He admitted to renting the SeaRay and towing an inflatable vessel with him.
He then staged a struggle onboard and used the inflatable vessel to get back to shore where he drove to Georgia in his pickup truck. Palm Beach County Police noticed that Ohrn had been collecting items to stage his disappearance at least a week before his boat was found.