Judge reinstates self-employment ban for convicted Maine fraudster

A convicted fraudster cannot employ himself because of the high risk of him committing additional fraud, a judge said at a resentencing hearing Tuesday.

Nathan Reardon, a former businessman and property manager in the Bangor area, was resentenced after a federal appeals court said a self-employment ban on Reardon wasn’t properly justified by U.S. District Court Judge Lance Walker.

Reardon cannot be self-employed during his time on supervised release, Walker reaffirmed Tuesday.

“Mr. Reardon’s conduct has been one of a serial fraudster,” Walker said.

Reardon was arrested in August 2023 for violating conditions of his supervised release following a Bangor Daily News investigation that found he was still a landlord despite the self-employment ban from the court. Walker sentenced Reardon to nine months in prison and an additional 25 months of supervised release for that violation and four others.

He appealed the ban and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated the decision, saying Walker did not properly justify the ban by not providing enough information about why it was the least restrictive way possible to protect the public from Reardon, two of the three judges said in their May 23 opinion.

When Reardon is self-employed, there is a risk “to a metaphysical certainty” that he would commit fraud again at the detriment to the public, Walker said, while explaining for more than 30 minutes why Reardon’s self-employment ban should remain in place.

“So strong was his taste for grift that a federal indictment could not bend his ways,” Walker said.

Reardon working for himself is not good for him or the community, Assistant United States Attorney Andrew Lizotte said. By working for an unrelated third-party, he won’t “fall into this trap where he fancies himself to be this kingmaker,” Lizotte said.

Reardon was convicted in 2022 of fraud for falsifying payroll information to receive a $60,000 Paycheck Protection Program loan. It was his second criminal case in roughly two years. His sentence in November 2022 was for 20 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release, which included the ban from Reardon employing himself during that time.

The additional nine months in prison after violating his conditions of release served as an additional deterrent for Reardon, emphasizing that he would not commit any more violations of his release, Reardon’s attorney Daniel Dube said.

After the appeals court sent the self-employment ban back, Reardon could have gone back to working for himself, but decided not to, Dube said.

“I think that goes a long way to answering what seems to be a concern of the court … that my client was in essence thumbing his nose at the court in violating some of these conditions,” Dube said.

Walker was not persuaded by the arguments that Reardon had learned his lesson and was not a threat to the public.

“I hope I haven’t been overly blunt about it, but in the event that being blunt is needed, Mr. Reardon has repeatedly, repeatedly violated the law,” Walker said.