This Florida smooth-talker thought he could game the system, but justice finally caught up with him. Clark P. Rittersbach, a 51-year-old from Cape Coral, just got slapped with a two-year federal prison stint after running what prosecutors call a straight-up con job through his classic car shop in upstate New York.
Turns out, his high-end restoration business, Concours Classic Motor Cars over in Macedon, was little more than a fancy front. The guy somehow pocketed over $2.5 million from clients worldwide—money for dream-car makeovers that either barely started or, in some cases, never happened at all.
Here’s the kicker: this wasn’t some sloppy, fly-by-night scuffle. Rittersbach played the long game, leaning hard on the fact that restorations take ages. With most owners living out of state or even overseas, he’d fire off slick emails and texts full of lies, spinning yarns about “completed” engine rebuilds or “progress” on vintage Porsches when his shop hadn’t so much as popped the hood…