Dealer Extortion Attempt Ends With Arrest

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of a Florida man charged with attempted extortion of a Daytona Beach auto dealer. Christian Eugene Mosco, 46, is accused of threatening the owner of Jon Hall Chevrolet, former Daytona Beach mayor Glenn Ritchey, with publicizing Mosco’s discovery of sales records belonging to Jon Hall Jeep Hyundai.

The records contained personally identifiable customer information, including Social Security numbers and birthdates, and Mosco believed their loss would prove embarrassing to Ritchey. In a series of messages sent from his own Gmail account, Mosco sent photos of the documents and requested $50,000 in cash and a 2019 Chevrolet Malibu in exchange for their return; in an apparent attempt to demonstrate good faith, he also sent a self-drafted and signed nondisclosure form, all according to police reports.

If Ritchey were to fail to comply, Mosco would “promptly publish to all local media the fact that Jon Hall Chevrolet has allowed their customers’ private identity information to be tossed to the curb, per se. This I believe would devastate Mr. Ritchey’s future business and of course expose Mr. Ritchey to a class-action lawsuit that would certainly cost him millions of dollars,” according to the text of the initial email.

Instead, Ritchey called the police. At their behest, Ritchey’s executive assistant continued communicating with Mosco, eventually convincing him to bring the records to the dealer’s attorney’s office, where he was taken into custody.

Mosco told police he found the documents at the curb in front of a private residence in Daytona Beach. Dealership personnel said they appeared to be genuine, were all at least 15 years old, and had probably been stolen.