By Dan Horn
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Federal authorities unsealed an arrest warrant Wednesday charging would-be developer LaShawn R. Pettus-Brown with wire fraud.

Pettus-Brown has for months been the subject of an investigation into how the city of Cincinnati lost more than $184,000 on the ill-fated Empire Theater project, which Pettus-Brown had overseen.

Pettus-Brown, a former professional basketball player in Japan, accepted thousands of dollars in city loans and grants and then failed to deliver on his promise to fix up the 89-year-old Over-the-Rhine landmark.

FBI officials, who have been unable to find Pettus-Brown, said they unsealed the arrest warrant Wednesday in hopes the publicity would generate new information about his whereabouts.

"If we knew exactly where he was," said FBI spokesman Jim Turgal, "he would have been picked up by now."

Turgal said FBI agents believe Pettus-Brown is in the Greater Cincinnati area.

The federal arrest warrant was filed May 14 but remained sealed until Wednesday. The warrant includes no supporting documents or new details about the probe.

The wire fraud charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

In February, FBI agents raided Pettus-Brown's Vine Street office and seized records and equipment in an attempt to learn more about what happened to him and the money he accepted from the city.

The search warrant for the raid said that nearly $93,000 of the money the city paid to Pettus-Brown is missing.

City officials had previously believed that all of the $184,000 invested in the project went toward work on the theater, but that the project collapsed because Pettus-Brown could not get a bank to finance the project.

Federal investigators have said Pettus-Brown wrote five bad checks totaling $33,850 to a construction contractor for work at the theater site.

E-mail dhorn@enquirer.com