Failed Muni Bond Draws FBI and Sparks ‘Ponzi-Like Fraud’ Claims

Before the lawsuits started piling up in courtrooms across Connecticut, before his employer accused him of running a “massive Ponzi-like fraud,” and before the FBI showed up, Robert Cappelletti looked well on his way to pulling off one of the greatest muni-bond coups of all time.

The plan Cappelletti had put together was so audacious it bordered on the fantastical. The housing agency he ran in Groton, a sleepy town of some 40,000 people along Connecticut’s Thames River, would sell $750 million of bonds to jumpstart a $4 billion project to transform a bunch of run-down shopping plazas into a sprawling, ...