By FRANK ELTMAN and TOM HAYS

Associated Press

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y.

Although the musical's producers had never heard of Hotton, he successfully sold himself as a globe-trotting moneyman with connections to a wealthy Australian named Paul Abrams.

That was before Hotton raised suspicions by claiming that Abrams had suddenly dropped dead.

Federal prosecutors charged Hotton on Monday with concocting a tale of phantom investors and an untimely death as imaginative as the classic Alfred Hitchcock film about a man haunted by the memory of his dead first wife.

Hotton, 46, also was charged in two other swindles--one targeting a Connecticut-based real estate company and another that investigators say involved his wife and sister on Long Island.

A judge in federal court in Long Island ordered Hotton held without bail on Monday after prosecutors argued he was a flight risk.

In court papers, the government accused Hotton of creating a web of shell companies they likened to a Ponzi scheme that victimized people across the country to the tune of $15 million.

Hotton, a former stockbroker who lost his license last year, managed to "lull some investors into a temporary sense of security by allowing them to realize small returns on investments, while the remainder funded the Hottons' lifestyle.

That lifestyle included pleasure boats registered to others and waterfront property," the papers say.

In the "Rebecca" case, he "faked lives, faked companies and even staged a fake death," the prosecutor said.

Hotton's attorney declined to comment.

The planned $12 million production of the 1938 novel by Daphne du Maurier collapsed earlier this month amid questions about its financial backing.