Bret Gordon was sentenced last week in the U.S. District Court in Boston to 46 months in prison and ordered to pay $2.9 million for defrauding hundreds of customers of the now-defunct river cruise reselling operation Tom Harper Cruises, the company he established in 2013.
Between September 2013 and June 2015, Gordon took about $2.3 million from Tom Harper accounts for his own use, primarily for casino gambling, the U.S. Attorney's Office of the District of Massachusetts reported. The court noted that about 400 customers were left without the river cruises they had booked, after paying Tom Harper Cruises nearly $2.9 million in total.
Gordon owned a 65% stake in the company, under which the Newton, Mass.-based Tom Harper River Journeys was operated. Tom Harper River Journeys sold river cruise inventory on ships throughout Europe, Asia and Africa, including on vessels owned by the former Haimark Travel, on CroisiEurope ships and on the Zambezi Queen in Botswana.
According to court documents, as the company's manager Gordon had exclusive control of its bank accounts and finances. Most of the funds Gordon took were customer deposits that the company needed to retain in order to pay the independent cruise companies that operated the river cruises being sold by Tom Harper Cruises.
Ultimately, Tom Harper Cruises became unable to pay its regular business expenses and to pay the cruise companies for the river cruises booked by customers. In June 2015, Tom Harper Cruises shuttered and filed for bankruptcy.
Additionally, Gordon failed to report the money he had taken as income on his personal income tax returns, including about $165,000 that he received in 2013 and about $900,000 that he had taken in 2014.
In November 2016, he pleaded guilty to six counts of wire fraud and two counts of filing a false personal tax return.
Gordon's prison term will be followed by three years of supervised release.
Prior to launching Tom Harper Cruises, Gordon served as COO of Vantage Deluxe World Travel. He also briefly served as CEO of a company established in 2014, Amras Cruises Worldwide, which sold Luftner Cruises' Amadeus fleet of river cruise vessels to the North American market. That company no longer exists, and Luftner Cruises are now being marketed and sold stateside by a company called Amadeus River Cruises.