A Villager accused of swindling fellow residents out of $3 million will skip a court date this week due to his other travel plans.
John Michael Gissas, 74, of the Village of Gilchrist has been granted permission to skip a hearing Thursday in his criminal case in Sumter County Court. Gissas, who is facing nearly 30 criminal counts in an alleged investment scheme needs to miss the hearing because he needs “to travel to meet family at the same time the hearing is set.”
According to the investigation that led to his arrest, Gissas placed ads in The Villages Daily Sun inviting residents to his investment seminars at the Waterfront Inn and VKI Japanese Steakhouse at Lake Sumter Landing. A Villages couple saw the ad in 2019 and attended Gissas’ seminar. They gave him $529,854 and never got a penny of it back. Another Villager lost $794,000 when she invested with Gissas. A total of 27 investors lost a total of $3.7 million with Gissas, according to the investigation report. There were said to be others who either could not be contacted or were too embarrassed to go on the record. The financial crimes investigator for the Florida Office of Financial Regulation found that Gissas from May 2018 to July 2020 “systematically deceived and took advantage” of the victims.
