Francis Owens, 64, of Narrowsburg, has been arrested by the New York State police at Liberty on charges of grand larceny and offering a false instrument.

According to a press release, the state police and the Family Services Fraud Investigation Team “conducted a joint investigation which revealed that Owens applied for and received public assistance benefits totaling $8,900.” Officials say he entered false information on the benefits he was not eligible to receive.

Owens was remanded to the Sullivan County Jail in lieu of $2,500 cash bail. He has previously been in the news because he lost $2 million in an investment in Lloyd Barriger’s Gaffken & Barriger Fund, which Barriger guaranteed would achieve 8% returns.

The fund, which at one time had assets of $50 million, collapsed amid the real estate market meltdown in 2008, and Barriger sent letters to Owens and all other investors that they would no longer have access to their investments and the 8% payments would no longer be made.

In February 2012, a federal court ordered Barriger to pay about $6.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.