SI mini-Madoff is hit with fraud charge

A mini-Madoff conned seven Staten Island friends out of $2.5 million by promising them he was investing it in foreign currency trading — but instead spent their cash on expensive cigars, trips and $370-a-pop treatments for his varicose veins, officials charged yesterday.

Thomas Carson, 45, faces up to 25 years after being arraigned on fraud charges, Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan Jr. said.

Carson met his victims at the Richmond County Country Club, where he’s a member, or through St. Joseph’s Hill Academy, a private Staten Island high school that his daughter and some of the other victims’ children attend, officials said.

Carson, the president of a derivatives firm TDML Inc., got his friends to chip in a total of $4 million in amounts ranging from $90,000 to $1.876 million.

The account was supposed to be invested in a New Jersey-based foreign currency exchange trader. But in reality he used the money to bankroll “a luxurious lifestyle” and covered his tracks with fictitious monthly statements, Donovan said.

Among the comforts Carson treated himself to were trips to the Bahamas and Atlantic City and 30 dermatological treatments for his varicose veins costing a total of $11,100.

The scam ran from March 2006 to June 2009 but began to collapse when one of the victims became suspicious and triggered a six-month investigation. Carson, who is married and has two children, 8 and 12, pleaded not guilty and was freed on $250,000 bail.

“He’s devastated,” his lawyer Patrick Perrotta said.

He said Carson legitimately invested the money. “Unfortunately, he sustained losses, not unlike a lot of other investors and traders over the last two years because of the downturn in the economy and the consequential volatility in the markets.”