Samuel Pandolfo

Who was Samuel Pandolfo?

In 1917, Samuel Pandolfo raised $9.5 million through stock sales and built an automobile plant in St. Cloud, Minnesota. During the next two years, the plant turned out 737 automobiles and fulfilled numerous U.S. government war contracts. Yet by 1919, Pandolfo was out of business. Found guilty of mail fraud, Pandolfo received a three-year prison sentence in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, and his company was ultimately closed.

The government claimed that Pandolfo defrauded the 70,000 stockholders in his company by sending them misleading information. Among the charges was one that a company flier included a “plane’s eye view’” of the Pan Motor Car Company that wasn’t actually drawn in an airplane.

Others have countered that Pandolfo was done in not because of his business practices, but because of his beliefs. Pandolfo had the vision to believe that the average person could own shares of stock, and he eagerly sold it to them.

Pandolfo’s career as would be auto-magnate/federal prisoner began in 1899 when he became the superintendent of schools in Las Cruces, New Mexico Territory.