Mercedes only planned on building 275 AMG One hypercars, and Los Angeles-based fashion CEO Michael Mente wanted one. He wanted one so badly that he was willing to pay $5.4 million for a build slot to a French exotic car dealer he’d never met or even heard of before. Unfortunately for Mente, that dealer was allegedly a con man in Texas who pocketed the entrepreneur’s cash and ran.
According to the Denver Post, Mente said he was recommended to a “Jean-Pierre M.R. Clement” by Colorado-based attorney Scott Oliver in 2021. How Mente came to know Oliver, or why he’d take that recommendation, is unclear. But in doing so, Mente transferred money for what he thought was that built slot from Clement, and was told that Mercedes would contact him with a date to begin building his hypercar. Of course, the date never came because Clement didn’t exist, and no build slot was ever secured.
The United States Department of Homeland Security contacted Mente in 2022 to inform him that the man purporting to be Clement was actually a serial con artist named Traveon Rogers from Austin, Texas. Mente has since filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Colorado against both Rogers and Oliver to return his $5.4 million.
Calling Rogers a con man might be an understatement. According to his LinkedIn, Rogers sold his stake in two businesses for $1 billion each, he was an early investor in Snapchat, an investor in BitPay, and even an NFL player. While we can’t easily confirm his investments, we can check his so-called NFL tenure. Turns out that despite the photo of a Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver in his resume, the player in that photo is Taveon Rogers, not Traveon. Bengals WR Taveon Rogers went to New Mexico State University, but Traveon’s LinkedIn says he went to Louisiana Tech, Rice, and Texas Christian Universities. If you’re gonna pretend to be someone else, at least do it accurately.
It’s unclear how Mente is going to get his money back, as Rogers is currently being sued for several other fraud schemes, including selling a different fake AMG One build slot and impersonating Aston Martin personnel. He’s also currently facing a seven-year sentence for those earlier offenses. It makes this video of him bragging about being able to sell anything for millions of dollars and getting people to buy it seem a bit ironic now.
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