I am SHOCKED!!
Posted on 12/19/2011 7:48:49 AM PST by Colofornian
FOUNTAIN GREEN, Sanpete County — FBI agents closed a prominent real estate management business here Thursday and began removing documents pertaining to the investigation of what the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission calls a “$220 million Ponzi scheme.”
The SEC claims Wendell and Allen Jacobson used their LDS Church membership to gain the trust of investors.
SEC agents also removed documents from the home of Wendell Jacobson, 58, owner of Management Solutions, who lives across the street from the company’s headquarters.
Federal Judge Bruce S. Jenkins granted an SEC request for a restraining order against Jacobson, and its request that Management Solutions’ assets be "frozen" while their investigation is under way.
A statement by the SEC says Jacobson, and his son Allen, 33, “offer investors the opportunity to share ownership of large apartment communities in eight states," but instead "are merely pooling the money raised from investors into large bank accounts from which they are siphoning money to pay family expenses and the operating expenses of their various companies.”
A civil complaint filed in U.S. District Court alleges the Jacobsons have been engaged in fraudulent practices since at least 2008 and says the father and son “appear to be using their membership" in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to make connections and win over the trust of prospective investors. Wendell Jacobson is bishop of a Snow College student ward.
"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encourages its members to be honest in their dealings and conduct themselves with integrity," church spokesman Scott Trotter said Friday. "When someone preys upon the members of a congregation or community in order to get personal gain, it is a reprehensible betrayal of confidence, and its perpetrators are rightfully subject to criminal prosecution."
The father and son “raised more than $220 million from approximately 225 investors through a complex web of entities under the umbrella of Management Solutions, Inc.,” the SEC alleges.
“Wendell and Allen Jacobson misled investors to believe they were financially supporting what was portrayed as a widespread and reputable operation to revamp apartment communities and turn a significant profit,” said Ken Israel, director of the SEC’s Salt Lake Regional Office. “Their promises were anything but truthful.”
FBI agents combed through the records of Management Solutions through the night and into Friday morning. Vans were on hand to haul off documents.
The SEC says the father and son “used alleged ‘sales’ as a means of shifting investors into and out of certain properties.” It says most investments were funneled into a “clearing house” corporation known as Thunder Bay Mortgage Company.
In some instances, the SEC alleges, the Jacobsons bought properties they had supposedly sold for a profit with another shell corporation. They also allegedly moved their money into joint accounts to make it appear to investors they were committing their own capital to a project, only to quickly transfer the money back to their own account.
The SEC complaint alleges investors in four of the Jacobsons' corporations received a “6 to 8 percent” return on their investments, though the combined income from the corporations was $32,200. Those corporations' expenses over the period they supposedly profited were $1.3 million.
The complaint argues that Thunder Bay is insolvent. "As of Dec. 31, 2010, Thunder Bay owed investors and investor LLCs more than $103 million. As of the same period, Thunder Bay showed a net loss of over $2.2 million. Having no actual operations, Thunder Bay relied almost entirely on new investor funds as its source of funding. Without these new investor funds, Thunder Bay would immediately cease operation.”
Wendell Jacobson and his brothers Gene and Evan financed the construction of a 21,000 square foot office in the farming community of Fountain Green in 2008.
Wendell Jacobson is the former chairman of the Sanpete County Republican Party. Gene Jacobson is the chairman of Sanpete County’s planning and zoning commission. Neither have been charged in connection with the case.
Calls to the Jacobsons were not returned. Mark Pugsley, the Jacobsons’ attorney, told Bloomberg Businessweek that the two men have cooperated fully in the investigation and intend to “vigorously defend the case.”
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Story written by Christian Probasco with contributions from Alex Cabrero.
In recent years, it's been heavily concentrated, religious-wise, in a sect that is only 1.7% of the population: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons.
If you only have time to click on one article link below...read this one: JOHN L. SMITH: Thieves in the temple: How 'affinity fraud' hurts LDS church members
Be sure to read the comments of FBI special agent Cameron Saxey (who is Lds)...the article mentions how the Utah jurisdictional Securities Fraud Task Force was working on 100+ cases...meaning that $1.4 billion total doesn't tell it all!
BTW...I went to absolutely no major effort or had to do any "days of pouring over" the internet to strain these to the surface. Just about all of them were delivered right into my e-mail lap...meaning I wonder what more I'd find if I really dug deeper!
* Former LDS bishop cons elderly man out of life savings, police say
Source: Provo Daily Herald, Oct. 19, 2011
* Tag archives @Utahsecuritiesfraud.com: LDS Church
* Feds arrest St. George business man, philanthropist for mail fraud
Source: Mormon-church owned KSL.com, June 11, 2011
* Former LDS leader charged in fraud against Ute football coach, others
Source: Salt Lake Tribune, June 8, 2011
* Suspected Mormon Con Artist Pleading Guilty to $78M Scam
Source: Streetsweeper.org, May 31, 2011
* Mormon Madoff?
Source: Financial Fraud Law.com, May 27, 2011
* A Fraud Played Out on Family and Friends
Source: New York Times, May 26, 2011
* St. George investor ordered to jail [ex-Lds bishop]
Source: MidUtahRadio.com, April 15, 2011
* Using trust to steal (Utah affinity fraud)
Source: Ogden (UT) Standard Examiner, Feb. 3, 2011
* Mormons Now Losing Billions to Affinity Fraud
Source: Religion Dispatches.org, Sept. 13, 2010
* JOHN L. SMITH: Thieves in the temple: How 'affinity fraud' hurts LDS church members
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal, Sept. 12, 2010
* Local political gadfly arrested for exploiting elderly woman
Source: Provo Daily Herald, May 4, 2010
* Preying on the faithful: Though Mormons often victims, LDS church skips fraud-prevention event
Source: Salt Lake Tribune, May 2, 2010
* Kaneohe swindler is sentenced
Source: Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 6, 2010
* Investors with troubled firm have Mormon ties
Source: Austin American Statesman, Jan. 16, 2010
* Man Who Defrauded Fellow Church Goer Pleads Guilty
Source: www.connect2utah.com (KUTV) Jan. 7, 2010
* Lindon Man Accused of Trying to Kill Witnesses to Alleged Scam
Source: MidUtahRadio.com, Nov. 19, 2009
* KSL 5 News investigates affinity fraud
Source: KSL.com Nov. 9, 2009
* Mormon victims are caught up in $50M scam to sell gold bullion
Salt Lake Tribune, Sept. 18, 2009
* LDS Church returned $200K in Southwick Tithing
Source: AP, Sept. 14, 2009
* Merriman's church donations may be tained [Momon Ponzi schemer's tithe monies ill-gotten?]
Source: Denver Post, April 24, 2009
* Man Who Defrauded Fellow Church Goer Pleads Guilty
Source: Fox News, April 8, 2009
* Calif. Man Charged with $40 million Ponzi scheme
Source: AP, March 20, 2009
I am SHOCKED!!
"Hey brother, I wouldn't screw you, you're my bretheren, ya know"?
Even took down Dee Dee Corradini, mayor of SL.
Utah is divided into two groups: the cynical predators and the beaming, trusting, simpleton prey.
There are many people who are duped into these get rich schemes, it does seem however that mormons are duped more often than others.
Amateurs.
The real Ponzi did it without any Mormon connections.
I used to represent a couple of insurance companies in those instances where their independent agents would include their insurance products of part of the agent’s bogus ponzi type investment scheme. (It is not an uncommon occurance). By the times these crooks got caught they were out of money so every entity they sold product for would become the defendants in the inevitable lawsuits. Every one of these scamsters I ever had to deal with in one of these lawsuits used a religious come on to sucker their clients. Every single one.
AMWAY=Mormons, Mary Kay=Mormons, Melaleuca=Mormons, Colloidal Silver=Mormons, Magnet Therapy=Mormons, Hollow Earth Extract=Mormons....Although not unique to them, often when your find a cult-like multi-level marketing "business" that tricks poor hard working folks into "selling" for far less than minimum wage, there is a mormon behind it.
A couple centuries of selling their cult garbage has raised up millions of highly trained snake oil salesman like Reid and Romney.
The real Ponzi did it without any Mormon connections."
LOL. So true, those who have to hunt among the domesticated animals are not the predators they fancy themselves to be. They're just lame scum who take advantage of the gullible, the one born every minute. Now Ponzi, he was a lion on the savanna filled with herds wild and wise animals which for him, were simply prey.
That's probably because, like many uninformed FReepers mormons are convinced that the entire membership of mormonism is better than, more honest than, just downright superior to anyone else.
So many of the members are unaware that Joseph Smith was probably the most successful wielder of the Ponzi principle than even Madoff. Millions happily fork over their money to the mormon corporation believing they are purchasing an exclusive ticket to salvation that is not available to Christians.
Utah is con man heaven.
People are taught from infancy to trust the brethren without asking questions.
It’s traceable to Kirtland OH in the 1830’s.
$40 bottle of cranberry juice anyone ?
Sea Silver=Mormons too.
I say "almost" because the Lord will bring it all to an abrupt end.
Guess the name of the company Ponzi created to scam people before he was jailed and later deported?
The Securities and Exchange Company.
Sound familiar?
Mormonism IS a fraud. Why would it surprise us that their members, having been easily deluded in the largest fraud of their souls (tragically), are so easily taken in by lesser frauds.
If you think about it, the entire mormon fraud is a Celestial Amway operation.
You worship a God who used to be a man, but “did the right stuff” and became a Mormon God.
You are taught you can become a god with your own worshipers and your own planet.
You must do all the things required to reach Silver, Gold and then Platinum Heaven levels.
You are taught secret signs, rituals, beliefs, sales techniques.
You must recruit others.
Someday, you reach Platinum Level, Become God (head of a new Down-line), start popping out spirit babies to populate your down-line on your new planet.
Each new spirit baby begins the new downline.
It’s some satanic cross of every religion, New Age teaching, and Muti-Level Marketing scam.
In short, it is a massive fraud on so many levels, destroying lives and souls.
It is truly sad.
I know, all Mormons aren’t evil. But I get royally roasted every time I bring up my own business dealings with Mormon movers and shakers who believe they’ve gotten their planet early.
Ominously, yes.
It sounds like Mr. Smith’s legacy continues unabated!
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