Ben Sprecher Exonerated

The producer of Rebecca-The Musical which is still slated for a Broadway opening in 2014 has been proven innocent. Mark Hotton, 47, admitted on Monday to having scammed cash from him by "finding" millionaire investors who turned out to be fictional characters. When Ben Sprecher got suspicious about one of Hotton's phantom investors, he had him suddenly die from malaria, court papers say. The con was part of an elaborate scheme to pocket $65,000 in finder's fees. "Some of these fees and expenses . . . were paid as a result of false pretenses by me," the cool and collected con artist told Judge John Koeltl. While he admitted to both scams, he said he pocketed less than the feds had claimed. Anyway, it is  Hotton's motivation is still in the dark. He is also scheduled to cop a plea to a money laundering conspiracy in connection with a $3.7 million scheme to rip off Brooklyn's Maimonides Medical Center through fraudulent invoices. Compared to that sum, the 65,000 are peanuts. Asked for an explanation, Hotton's lawyer, Ira London, said his client authorized him to say that, "There's a chapter yet to be written in this saga," but refused to elaborate. Very mysterious.