Economics

Giant sucking sound

by Seth Gitell

Call him a one-man economic indicator.

The news broke last week that a Suffolk County grand jury had indicted Boston-based Web designer Zachary Hildreth, 36, for bilking two clients out of $77,500. What the reports didn't divulge is that Hildreth is the notorious "Tex" Zachary Hildreth of Braintree, a computer whiz kid convicted in 1989 of embezzling almost $1 million during the 1980s economic boom.

The state attorney general alleges that Hildreth persuaded two investors to sink funds into his Persistex Group, Inc., which he described as an Internet service provider and Web-page design company. Hildreth procured the investments based on false claims of pending Web-design projects -- including one for a police department in Rhode Island, prosecutors claim.

None of this is particularly remarkable -- except for the eerie similarity of these allegations to the charges that landed Hildreth in the slammer in the first place. A Norfolk Superior Court jury convicted Hildreth of 26 larceny charges back in 1989, according to a report in the Patriot Ledger that year. Hildreth suckered money out of investors by -- guess what? -- lying about lucrative corporate contracts held by his computer firm, Massdata Corp. You'd think investors would have checked Tex out before giving him money -- again.

Hildreth, formerly a chunky computer nerd at Braintree High School, brazenly reinvented himself as an '80s-era Donald Trump clone. He even showed up at his fifth high-school reunion in a limousine, 100 pounds thinner, with a beautiful woman by his side. However, it later turned out that the limo had been rented and the woman was a stranger he had talked into accompanying him to the event.

Hildreth's lawyer did not return telephone calls seeking comment.