Hamptons biz owner poses as ex-partner to cancel his $4K Aruba trip, cops say

Hell hath no fury like a scorned business partnership.

Suffolk Police nabbed a Southampton man Thursday for allegedly impersonating his former business partner to cancel the man’s $4,000 Aruba vacation three hours before takeoff.

The victim was already standing in line at JFK International Airport when the alleged scam took place.

Ronald Fisher, 42, turned himself in at the Seventh Precinct on Thursday morning and was charged with first-degree identity theft.

Fisher — Riverhead News-Review’s Community Leader of the Year back in 2017 — pleaded not guilty during his arraignment later on Thursday in Suffolk First District Court in Central Islip.

Jerry Smith of Moriches discovered his tropical getaway had been torched on March 22, 2025, when airport staff delivered the news that his ticket had been been canceled. Someone had dialed up the travel agency before departure and scrapped Smith’s whole trip, police said.

That someone, according to Suffolk Police Financial Crimes Unit detectives, was Fisher, who allegedly used Smith’s personal information to pose as him during the call. The cancellation cost Smith $4,202.

But the ruined vacation was just another salvo in what Smith alleges in court documents has been a pointed campaign to freeze him out of Fisher Signs & Shirts LLC, the Southampton signage company the two men co-owned as equal partners.

A lawsuit Smith filed in Suffolk Supreme Court in June 2025 alleges that Fisher had spent the previous year systematically dismantling Smith’s life: redirecting his salary to Smith’s ex-wife, canceling his health insurance, intercepting his text messages, terminating his 401(k), and allegedly diverting more than $1 million from the business and its subsidiary companies.

Smith had joined Fisher Signs as a 50/50 partner in September 2021, buying in by guaranteeing what he believed was a $300,000 SBA loan for legitimate business purposes, Smith says in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges Fisher — who in 2017 ran unsuccessfully for Southampton Town Trustee — actually used those funds for his personal divorce settlement, and then charged the loan payments against Smith’s share of profits for years.

The freeze-out began in May 2024, according to the lawsuit. Fisher allegedly told Smith he was “terminated” that October.

The Aruba cancellation came five months into that campaign, while Smith was already locked out of company bank accounts and stripped of his benefits.

The civil lawsuit seeks over $1 million in damages. It remains pending in Suffolk Supreme Court.

Fisher is the former president of the Flanders, Riverside and Northampton Community Association. He also has served on Riverhead’s Board of Education.

_{Top: (inset) Ron Fisher (Facebook/Fisher Signs & Shirts) and Fisher Signs & Shirts (Google Maps Street View)}