Jay Lucas, businessman and former Republican candidate for governor of New Hampshire, has pleaded guilty in federal court to defrauding investors, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced.
Lucas, 71, is a Newport native and the founder of the Newport Sunshine Initiative, which was designed to revitalize the town. He was also last owner of the now defunct Claremont Eagle-Times. Most recently, he lived in Portsmouth and Manhattan.
He pled guilty Friday to one count of securities fraud, one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, each of which carries a maximum prison term of 20 years, and one count of investment adviser fraud, which carries a maximum prison term of five years. His actual sentence will be determined by a federal judge. No sentencing date has been announced.
Federal authorities charged Lucas with those crimes in December, accusing him of running a $50 million Ponzi scheme in which he used investors’ funds for personal expenses, to pay off earlier investors, and to fund a skin-care company founded by his wife. The personal expenses included “alimony, rent, a vanity newspaper project in his hometown, and political consultants.”
Under the fraud scheme, which began in 2017, Lucas’ company, Lucas Brand Equity (LBE), raised $50 million, saying the money would be invested in early-stage health and wellness companies.
Some of that money propped up Immunocologie, a luxury skincare business started and run by Lucas’ wife, a conflict of interest not disclosed to investors. Much of the funding for Immunocologie was spent on trips, social events, and other unprofitable ventures, and LBE retained ownership of the skin-care brand rather than give clients an equity interest.
The misuse of that money starved the investment funds to the point that employees of LBE weren’t paid.
Lucas tried to raise the profile of his hometown of Newport, including through the purchase of the newspaper, and other philanthropic efforts. He launched a “The Sunshine Initiative,” which he hoped would restore Main Street businesses in small towns across America .
Lucas purchased the Claremont Eagle-Times in 2022, promising to revive the struggling paper under local ownership. But the paper stopped producing its print edition in mid-June 2025 after three newsroom staff resigned. One employee said at the time that over the previous few months, three of her seven paychecks had bounced.
The paper then suspended operations at the end of June 2025. It has not reopened.
Lucas was the 1998 Republican candidate for governor, a race he lost to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen by 36 percentage points.
