Fredrick D. Scott believed wholeheartedly in the treaty, “a presumption of innocence until proven guilty." However, on September 13, 2013, the pledge failed him. At the age of 28, Scott had plead guilty , of conspiracy to commit wire fraud which caused him a penalization of 63 months in prison, with an additional 3 years of supervised probation after his release.
Many ostracized Scott and labeled him a "Black Bernie Madoff," a con-man who capitalized off inexperienced investors in black communities; but, Scott disagrees and declares his innocence with unyielding fortitude.
A little back story: Although Fredrick D. Scott was born in California, he branched out much later in life and relocated to the grand state of New York.
“I was born and raised in a single parent home with two other younger siblings. My mom was a heroin addict for a long period of time. Interestingly enough, I’ve raised kids since I was a kid,” says Scott. “I have kids and I was married before. I was in the military for four years, and after that, I started my financial services."
Scott established a position as a Junior Loan Officer at a mortgage lending company in California. “I was there for about six months. Towards the last couple months in that year, I made $300,000 after taxes. I got married, had children and started my own company,” he reflected briefly.
Starting his own financial institution left a lot to be desired... “I failed tremendously. It’s not that I didn’t make money. I did. The issue is that I didn’t know how to run a business. I learned a very valuable and very hard lesson that you need to have a quality team around you. You are only as good as your team. From the lessons of starting that business, I put that into another business called Acacia Conglomerate, Inc."
In 2008, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of Folly Cease Financial, and in 2009, he Founded ACI Capital Group LLC (477 Madison Avenue 6th Floor New York, New York). He served as Chief Executive Officer at ACI Capital Group, LLC. It’s denoted that Scott matured the company to a massive $3.7 billion in assets.
“I decided to start a hedge fund because a buddy of mine who worked on Wall Street encouraged me, so I did. I didn’t know much about it, but I did a lot of research on it. I studied it. My ex-wife’s families, who were diplomats and politicians in Italy, they gifted me and opened the world of finance up to me.”
In 2010, and at the age of 25, Fredrick D. Scott was listed as Ebony Magazine Top 30 Under 30 [important people to look out for]. He became a high-demand Consultant, Private Equity Investor, Venture Capitalist, Investment Banker as well as an Advisory Firm, under ACI investments. He also appeared on TV One “Washington Watch” with Roland Martin. The numbers cruncher spoke at conferences across the world, including the Jackie Robinson Foundation.
He is coined a “wunderkind,” the youngest Hedge Fund founder in not just the African American community, but the world. He kick-started the Scott Family Foundation Intl., among other small investment firms. Although he admits to doing a few things that he’s not proud of during his excursions with ACI, Scott says it’s no different than exchanges on Wall Street that happens daily, the dirty little things that people don’t talk about.
When it was all said and done, Scott commenced his businesses with extreme subjectivity. He was self-assured, which might have been the reason for his fallout.
“Unfortunately, my arrogance and thoughts that I could do anything—the way I handled people [callously]. It’s not money that makes the world go around. That’s something I had to learn the hard way. It’s relationships. The way you treat people is everything. I wasn’t the best at treating people the right way, and because of that, I made people angry,” Scott admitted.
Scott spoke recklessly to the press about prominent individuals whom he felt took advantage of the Blacks within the community. “As soon as I made those statements, the FBI was in my office. I was arrested for allegedly stealing 1.3 million dollars from six of my clients.”
Scott stepped down as President and Chairman of The Scott Family Foundation Intl. An interim Chairman is taking control of the company sometime in the near future.
Scott says that he was intimidated into pleading guilty to a crime that he did not commit. He spent 5 years in prison, so he paid his dues. “I'm not saying, I didn’t do anything that wasn’t questionable. If you know about Wall Street, it is what it is. I’m not saying I’m an innocent guy that didn’t do anything wrong. I’m saying I didn’t do this thing,” shared Scott.
While in prison, Scott became an educator, who helped inmates acquire their GED’s. He taught classes in micro economics, macroeconomics as well as resume writing. While detained for 10 months in The Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn, New York, Scott rewrote the educational platform for MDC [The Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn].
“They [staffers and deputies from MDC] wrote a letter of support for me, and my judge said that she was appalled that they let me teach classes in prison."
It’s evident that Scott toted heavy baggage, the kind that antagonized his spirit, character, as well as his integrity. They say that one good deed deserves another, but not in Scott's case. Even in the eyes of the judicial system, he was still guilty. It’s safe to say that Scott felt deprived and martyred by what happened, and even that assumption might be an understatement.
The now: Since his release, the former investor is working to rebuild his good name. He often blogs about social injustices from his website Fredrickdscott.com. He tours and speaks at conferences, using his hard luck encounters to educate the urban communities about mass incarceration, tolls, proprietorship, depreciation, sustainable businesses, in addition to unity.
The catalyst was released from prison February 2018. "I came out with vengeance. I'm a fighter. Now, I plan to get in these streets and show people how to get money the right way. We're taking back our community," Scott declares.
In interview Scott skirmished to vindicate himself. Who could blame him? It's no telling the things he witnessed beyond those icy walls of confinement… That knowledge alone influences an unearthing question, “What can 5 years in Federal prison do to a man who was once on top of the world?"
Rhetorically speaking, the answer is easy. He woke up. Suddenly, his path became clearer, and he knew that in order to acquire any sense of a rebuttal from his past transgressions, he’d need to assist others in this dog eat dog kind of world.
“I’m going to use my platform to speak out against the things that happens in the mass incarceration system, the thing that happens in the African American communities every day. I’m going to talk about the gentrification projects that they put together. How, the Jewish communities come together and they do low bid offers on real estate and buy those things without anything ever coming to the market. They are able to get institutional interest rates that are like 2%. We, in the black community, can’t even dream of an interest rate like that. There’s a number of different things that happens in these communities that people aren’t aware of. They systematically target the Black and Hispanic community. If you look in the United States right now, Blacks represent 5% of the world’s population. The United States population as a whole represents 5% or the worlds population, yet we have 25% of the world incarcerated and African Americans make up nearly 50% of that. The truth of the situation is that we need to know the reason this is happening. No one is going to take care of your community better than the way we are going to take care of our community.”
Scott says that life happens to everyone, but Blacks should respond better. “We, in the African American community, will quickly march and protest, but we don’t take an active role in the political process. I’m not saying just by voting. There is a reason that the Jewish community is able to do what they do in the United States. It's because they pool their dollars together and influence legislation by influencing elections, like who gets elected in congress. They influence the legislative with their dollars. If we do that right, it will completely change the game for us.”
“Knowledge breaks the mental bondage of slavery.”
-Fredrick D. Scott
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