Producer Admits To Bilking Investors For Imaginary Broadway Show

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A Broadway producer has admitted scamming his friends and others into investing more than $165,000 in a nonexistent play about opera star Kathleen Battle supposedly starring Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o.

Roland Scahill, 42, pleaded guilty in Manhattan Supreme Court on Wednesday to grand larceny and fraud charges.

As part of the deal, Scahill is to be sentenced to six months in jail and five years of probation. He must repay the investors and receive psychiatric treatment.

Scahill admitted that he told his investors he had secured the rights to Battle's life story and that Nyong'o had signed on to star in a production about her at the Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45th St. He also told them Netflix would film the bogus show, dubbed The KB Project, and make it available online, according to prosecutors.

Scahill told his victims he was raising money for the show at a rate of $15,000 per share to fund the first stages of production, prosecutors said.

After a while, the investors wanted their money back, and Scahill sent them checks which bounced, prosecutors said. He had already spent it on stocks, options, credit cards, rent as well as food, alcohol and entertainment, according to prosecutors.

The victims were mostly his friends and were targeted between October 2014 and January 2015.

(© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)