John McNamara

John M. McNamara (born 1940) is an American convicted felon and former businessman. McNamara was convicted of a Ponzi scheme fraud through gaining loans to a value of $6 billion from General Motors financing arm GMAC, to develop a $400M car sales and property development business. Background The son of an Irish immigrant, raised in Port Jefferson, Long Island in the state of New York, McNamara was a devout Roman Catholic who was college educated. Twice-divorced, he had been declared bankrupt from a failed business venture in Florida. Returning to the single family-owned Pontiac-Buick auto dealership in Port Jefferson which his father started, as President of Sales, McNamara had ambitions in property development and politics. He made large contributions to his church, and single-handedly bankrolled a haven for wayward teenagers. Refused credit by some others, he hired bodyguards to intimidate those probing his business dealings. Business scheme With access to financing via GMAC, from 1980 McNamara applied for a series of loans to buy non-GM vans, valued at US$25,000 each, which he said would be customized, before being pre-sold and shipped to the Mediterranean island country of Cyprus.