Published: July 25, 2008 11:39 pm         

Former Rockwood man indicted

A grand jury in New York has returned an indictment naming Eric Skys, formerly of Rockwood, in an elaborate, multimillion-dollar fraud.

The indictment was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

The FBI had arrested Skys – a man of mystery – at his Somerset Township home on May 15 on securities and wire fraud charges. Police said he tried to defraud several financial institutions out of millions.

Skys had claimed to be the chairman, president and CEO of Kaiser Himmel Corp.

When he was arrested, federal authorities said they found 20 weapons, including a grenade launcher, in the house he rented with the woman he called his wife, Coreen Cunningham, and her daughters.

Skys portrayed himself as a multimillionaire computer genius who was developing unhackable software and who gave back to the Rockwood community – though he did not follow through on his philanthropy every time. He backed out of a promise to donate $200,000 to a stadium project at Rockwood Area School District.

Skys was known as Eric Ashley Lemon and Eric Smith when he lived in Riverside, Calif.

The next step in the case is a pretrial conference set for next week.

Skys’ attorney, Ira London, said he had no comment.

     

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.