Promoter Arrested For Fraud

A Rochester, N.Y., concert promoter has been jailed for allegedly conning several people out of about $50,000 for a summer country music series that fell apart.

Orleans County state police said 60-year-old Michael Cashman was arrested August 3rd and charged with fraud and grand larceny. Further charges are reportedly likely. Cashman is being held at the Orleans County Jail on $50,000 bail.

Police said they began investigating the suspect July 26th after local business owners started to suspect that his pitch wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

A July 16th concert featuring Lorrie Morgan and Connie Smith took place, but a July 24th show with Mark Chesnutt and Chalee Tennison was canceled, as was the rest of the series.

“He owes a lot of people a lot of money. I can’t say much more,” Debbie Patt, a former employee of Cashman’s firm, Nashville Country Connection, told the paper. “He wasn’t quite the gentleman he portrayed himself to be.”

This isn’t the first time Cashman has been on the wrong end of the law when it comes to concert promotions.

He was convicted of fraud in 2001 over a Michael Bolton concert that didn’t happen on Long Island.

He is also being sought by officials in Tennessee, where he’s accused of raising funds and accepting food donations for the homeless in 2002. He allegedly used the loot to throw a party for himself and his friends.