Hey, who says you need a corner office on the 41st floor of the Bear Stearns World Headquarters in order to defraud well-meaning Americans? These enterprising individuals have allegedly swindled Oregonians out of more than $25.5 million, and they ran companies with awful names out of awful, awful locations:
- kohd.com
- Tamara and Kevin Sawyer
THE HUSBAND & WIFE: Tamara and Kevin Sawyer of Bend, Ore., stand accused of losing $4.4 million for 23 real estate investors. Despite promising rates of return around 12 percent and issuing promissory notes, the Sawyers allegedly failed to invest the money as described to investors. Rather, it was used to buy cars, pay credit card bills and build a home in Mexico. Allegedly. Trial scheduled for Jan. 11, 2011.
OLD MAN PONZI: Even from the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks, Calif., the bent and decaying fingers of 68-year-old Louis Borstelmann managed to pick pockets in Florence, Oregon. Borstelmann is accused of soliciting approximately 100 individuals to invest $20 million in real estate through his company, Sunburst Associates, Inc., but never actually purchasing real estate with that money, save his own home. He is furthermore alleged to have used money from newer investors to pay existing investment obligations, as well as to purchase what must have been a very nice car. Trial scheduled for April 6, 2011.
THE OUT-OF-TOWNER: Robert Calvert of Henderson, Nev., is accused of defrauding 21 investors of $1.2 million through an investment scheme that involved transferring individual retirement and other trust accounts to the Trust Company of the Pacific, where Calvert worked at the time. Allegedly, Calvert diverted account funds to real estate investments without investor consent; as these real estate investments were entirely fictitious, all investor funds were lost. Trial scheduled for Dec. 21, 2011.
The investigations are a part of President Obama's Operation Broken Trust, which has been in full swing since Aug. 16, 2010.
I guess you only need that corner office to get away with the crime.