Case for Brecksville Man Who Lost $100,000 in an Alleged Scam Moving Forward

A six-year-old incident that cost a Brecksville man $100,000 is making its way into criminal court.

There is a potential hiccup, though—the suspect is already in jail.

Back in 2010, the Brecksville police began looking into the potential scam, said Detective Jim Lobenthal. But the story really begins in the summer of 2006. According to a police report, the suspect, Shihsiang S. Liao, 37, of New York City, reached out to a Brecksville resident that July, asking him to invest $100,000 in a Chinese basketball team that was going to be incorporated in Delaware. The resident wired the money into an account.

About two years later, the resident realized this partnership was not coming to fruition, and told police that he tried to get the suspect to return his money with no luck.

Lobenthal said the resident filed a civil suit in 2008, which was settled in the resident’s favor in 2011. While the police took the case in 2010, they had to wait until the civil case was closed to do a criminal indictment for Liao. That indictment for one count of theft was submitted on July 31, 2012.

Maria Russo, public information officer for the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s office, said the suspect was arraigned on Aug. 14 and a letter of apprehension was sent to New York, but there is nothing else scheduled at this time. According to the report, Liao is incarcerated in the Ogdensburg Correctional Facility in New York, and his earliest release date is Jan. 13, 2013. Lobenthal said the sentence is for another fraud: forging mortgage papers.