A stock “pump and dump” felon whose story inspired the movie “Boiler Room” tried to use his old tricks to swindle his estranged wife out of millions in marital assets — but a judge didn’t buy the scheme and ordered the Staten Island man to pay her over $1.8 million.
Robert Gillings, who worked for the notorious penny stocks firm J.T. Moran & Co. — the inspiration for Ben Young’s 2000 film — pleaded guilty to mail fraud in 1994.
During their bitter, nine-year divorce battle, his wife of 15 years, Connie Gillings, “credibly testified that although [her] husband had his Series 7 license revoked for fraud after a federal criminal prosecution, he continued trading and investing using other people’s licenses,” Judge Catherine DiDomenico ruled.
And she further declared Robert Gillings’ “account of his finances…patently not credible.”
The 59-year-old Rossville resident claimed he only made around $130,000 a year when his wife filed for divorce in 2005. Yet he listed expenses totaling $22,000 a month.
That includes his $4,500-a month rental and paying a cook, driver, housekeeper and private tutors for the former couple’s three children.
Meanwhile, Robert claimed he couldn’t recall what happened to a $1 million marital investment account, or $500,000 he plunked into the landmark Fraunces Tavern in Lower Manhattan where Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr celebrated July 4th in 1804 — a week before their fatal duel.
“Wife alleges that husband has engaged in a pattern of delay and divert using multiple courts, countless tactical maneuvers to gain time to dissipate, dispose of or otherwise unlawfully transfer away assets,” Judge DiDomenico says in her ruling released last week.
The judge noted that Robert, a fledging movie actor/producer of the film “The Kings of Brooklyn,” allowed a Harbor Court investment property and 53-foot yacht to go into foreclosure so he could deprive his wife of her share in the assets.
Robert told The Post that the lengthy divorce trial was“heartbreaking.”
He added that his wife accused him of beating her up multiple times, yet he was cleared of wrongdoing in three separate trials. His income plummeted after the false arrests, he said.
He questioned why the judge believed Connie’s testimony in the divorce if she was found to be not credible in the criminal trials.
He called the finding that he still trades under other people’s licenses “a complete fabrication.”
Judge DiDomenico ultimately calculated that Robert makes about $410,000 and ordered him to pay his wife $4,000 a month until she remarries or dies plus $400,000 in back support and fees.
She also told him to take out a $1.8 million life insurance policy, equal to the total amount he’ll have to pay his wife.
Despite the financial shenanigans the judge found that Robert was the better parent. She awarded him sole custody of the children, finding that Connie allowed her two daughters and son to live in squalor with “various species of fungi growing out of the carpet” at the family’s waterfront home after it was flooded during Hurricane Sandy.
A court-appointed psychologist also described the 54-year-old mother as “childlike…disorganized and chaotic.”
She did not return calls requesting comment.