Media

Ex-con: Seniors favored targets of scams
By MARCY GORDON
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Take it from one who knows: Senior citizens increasingly are being bilked in investment scams and they need to be vigilant, reformed con man Barry Minkow told senators Wednesday.

"There's this environment for fraud, ... the perfect fraud storm" engulfing seniors concerned by weak returns in the stock market or shortfalls in their retirement income, said Minkow. He served 7½ years in prison for defrauding investors in his ZZZZ Best carpet-cleaning company in the 1980s.

People 60 and older make up 15 percent of the country's population but account for an estimated 30 percent of fraud victims. With baby boomers swelling the ranks of retirees, regulators expect an increase in financial scammers preying on them.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has put together a new national strategy for protecting older investors, and is working with securities-industry and Florida regulators in a crackdown on misleading sales seminars for seniors offering free lunches.

"If seniors take away one message ... I hope they remember this: It took you a lifetime to save your retirement money - take five more minutes to make the (phone) call that could protect it," said Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, the senior Democrat on the Special Committee on Aging, who chaired the hearing.

The call Kohl mentioned should be made to state securities regulators to check out credentials of those offering investment deals and to ensure they are licensed to sell securities.

As a teenager, Minkow started ZZZZ Best in the garage of his family's San Fernando Valley home in California. He made headlines as the youngest person in American history, at 21, to take a company public.

But he made headlines of a different sort when he was convicted of 57 counts of securities, credit card and mail fraud in a scheme prosecutors said cost victims more than $100 million. ZZZZ Best claimed to be making a fortune restoring water- and fire-damaged buildings. Investors were given badges and hard hats and taken on tours of alleged restoration projects in abandoned buildings with which the company had no connection.

Minkow's prison term was one of the stiffest ever given a white-collar criminal.

Now a pastor at Community Bible Church in San Diego, Minkow also works undercover to help executives detect corporate crime as an executive of the Fraud Discovery Institute in San Diego, which he co-founded. Federal investigators credit him with helping break up several alleged scams, including what they call one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history: Orange County, Calif.-based Financial Advisory Consultants' alleged $814 million swindle of investors.

Ponzi schemes rely on attracting new investors to pay returns to current ones.

"People will stop at nothing ... to defraud," Minkow testified Wednesday. His advice for seniors: "Don't invest out of fear or greed."

Appearing with him was Ruth Mitchell of Columbiana, Ohio, who said she and her husband, Len, lost $100,000 in an alleged investment scam operated by accountant Barry Korcan in Pennsylvania.

Korcan pleaded guilty in January in federal court to mail fraud and tax evasion charges. Prosecutors say he took $11.3 million from clients, using his personal relationships and the clients' trust in him. He told them he was investing in something called Guardian Investments, which in reality was just a bank account that he controlled.

"Barry Korcan started Evergreen Hills Development in 1990 and we bought our lot from him in 1996," Ruth Mitchell recounted at the hearing. "It is now apparent that he was stealing from us for two years when we paid him another $30,000 for our lot. He sat at our dinner table and socialized with the entire neighborhood."

Mitchell's advice: "Investigate before you invest."

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, in a speech Friday, outlined the regulators' new initiative regarding sales seminars, often held at swank hotels and restaurants, that lure seniors "with promises of the proverbial 'free lunch."'

"For those who thought preying on senior citizens would be easy, there will be no free lunch," Cox said.

The sales pitches at the seminars and materials provided to participants must by law be approved by the brokerage or investment firm's supervisors, he noted.

"If we find that instead of a legitimate sales seminar and a free meal, seniors are being exposed to pitches for unsuitable products with high-pressure sales tactics, wild claims about projected returns, and no disclosure of the actual risks of an investment, we'll move in hard and fast," Cox said.

Originally published April 2, 2006

Meth use fuels jump in crimes
By SARA REED
SaraReed@coloradoan.com

Drugs, primarily methamphetamine, are fueling an increase in violent crime in Fort Collins, and more community involvement is needed to combat the problem.

"The problem of illicit drugs feeds into all other types of crimes," Fort Collins police Chief Dennis Harrison said. "We need a willingness to report and deal with it from people who see drug activity."

Harrison said fighting the drug problem and providing treatment to users and addicts is critical to solving the problem.

"We can't just warehouse them in jail," he said. "It's never worked, and it never will."

Crime statistics recently released by the police department show that major crime in Fort Collins in 2005 increased slightly, but was still lower than in 2003.

Sexual assaults were down 22.5 percent from 2004 and nearly 5 percent from 2003; however, aggravated assaults increased about 50 percent from 2004 and 13.4 from 2003.

Violent crimes, such as sexual assaults and assaults, are Harrison's biggest concern.

Educating residents on personal safety, including working with Colorado State University, is one of the ways the department is addressing the situation.

"The sexual assault situation has to change," he said.

Shiloh McCollum, 25, said she feels safe in Fort Collins and feels the police do a good job but also knows that crime can be a problem. McCollum, a seven-year resident, said she is sometimes frustrated by the lack of information on crimes released to the public.

"I wish I'd had more details about the serial rapist," she said, referring to Troy Graves, who sexually assaulted six women in 2001.

"I lived in a garden-level apartment, and it would have saved me a lot of stress."

Lauren Kuntz, 23, moved to the city from Columbus, Ohio, a year ago and said she has no concerns about crime.

"It's very, very, very safe," she said. "This is probably the safest I've felt anywhere."

Kuntz, who said she lives in the Old Town area and has no problem walking home at night, said the area is very well lighted and there are a lot of officers, things that could contribute to the low crime rate.

Keeping crime statistics is not as simple as putting a mark in a column when a crime happens, said Lori Frank, crime analyst with the department. Crime statistics are fluid and often change as reports are deemed unfounded, additional charges are added to cases and crimes are reported weeks or months after they occur, she said.

"It would be a lot easier for people to wrap their heads around it if the numbers were concrete," Frank said. "But it just doesn't work that way."

The department will also be changing the way it reports crime statistics, Frank said.

Currently, the department uses the Universal Crime Report format, a format created by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that only reports the most serious crime of an incident, Frank said.

Under the UCR, if there is a car trespass, a burglary and an assault in the course of one incident, only the assault is recorded, Frank said.

Under the new format, each crime is tallied individually, Frank said. This transition will give police and residents a clearer picture of crime in the city.

Both Harrison and Frank agreed that residents need to look beyond year-to-year changes and look at long-term trends in crime before making judgments.

"You can't just look at a short snapshot in time to judge the overall health of a community," Frank said.

Originally published April 6, 2006

Go online, track neighborhood crime
Interactive map on city site lists all offenses by specific area
By SARA REED
SaraReed@coloradoan.com

Fort Collins resident Leslee Garcia now has a way to check the number of vandalisms and thefts in her neighborhood. An interactive map, introduced by Fort Collins police earlier this week, allows residents to see the number of offenses committed in their neighborhood area.

Garcia, who lives near Foothills Mall, said there used to be some problems in her neighborhood and she wants to see if those are continuing.

She also wants to know what crime rates are like around town."I'm a native and want to know what's going on so I can be aware of
what's happening in my neighborhood and around the school," said Garcia, a Blevins Junior High School employee.

The statistics are broken down by reporting districts, said Lori Frank, police crime analyst.

There are nearly 700 reporting districts in the city, Frank said, which were established in the mid-'80s.

As they established the reporting districts, police tried to keep neighborhoods together and follow natural boundaries, such as streams and ditches, Frank said, and keep the populations as equal as possible. However, the populations of the districts vary greatly now because of growth.

With help from the city's Geographic Information Services department, Frank spent more than a year compiling the data and setting up the map. Statistics go back to 2003, and the 2004 statistics are broken into two sets, reflecting the change to the Tiburon dispatching system. The reporting districts did not change, only their names, Frank said. The site offers a feature that allows users to search by an address and get statistics for the reporting district that address lies in. The statistical categories used are based on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's crime category definitions, Frank said, and the site also includes definitions of types of crimes.

Because the statistics don't go down to the neighborhood or street levels, Frank was able to include all offenses. The exact location of certain offenses, including sex and drug offenses, cannot be released, Frank said. The crime blotter does not offer tracking of those offenses for that reason.

Frank said she undertook the project because of the number of requests she got for the information. "There is a lot of demand for this information," she said. "I get a lot of calls from people wanting to move to Fort Collins or a different part of Fort Collins. As a college town, I also get a lot of calls from people whose son or daughter is going to live here."

Because the statistics include only offenses and not all calls received, it paints a fairly accurate picture of crime in Fort Collins, Frank said. The site will be updated every other month, Frank said.

Steve and Meredith Flynn, who live in Old Town, said they will probably check out the site.

Steve Flynn, 27, said the site's biggest value could lie with people
looking to move to Fort Collins.

"It's important to check the crime rate if you're going to move to a
town, especially if you have a family," he said. "Every town should have this."

Originally published November 23, 2005

Police substation in Campus West likely on hold due to tight budget
By SARA REED
SaraReed@coloradoan.com

A Fort Collins police substation in the Campus West area could not only make a difference in cutting down on disturbances in the area, but also help homeowners and renters build better relationships.

But the city's budget crunch makes that seem unlikely to happen in the near future.

Citing the success of a District 1 station in Old Town in decreasing
disturbances and other problems in the area, police say the Campus West area would also benefit from a similar station.

"(District 1) has allowed us to take an area with a high concentration of calls and focus resources on that area," said spokeswoman Rita Davis. The initial proposal also included partnering with other city offices,
Davis said.

"Not all residential issues are police issues," she said. "But they can become police issues."

The substation was supposed to be a joint venture between the city and Colorado State University, something that would be valuable for both communities, said CSU police Chief Dexter Yarbrough.

"It would bridge the gap we have on the west side," Yarbrough said. "It would be more of a community policing atmosphere where residents can come down and report crimes or discuss strategies for solving problems."

However, it became clear that the police department could either maintain funding for the District 1 office or open the new one.

Nobody in the city denies that a substation in the area would be greatly beneficial, however, the money is not available to establish one, said Mayor Doug Hutchinson.

"They submitted an $800,000 or $1 million proposal (for the 2006 budget)," Hutchinson said. "But in the priority of things, it didn't
make the cut."

And a similar proposal would be unlikely to make the cut for the next budget, Hutchinson said, with the city facing a $2.3 million gap.

"It would be hard to put it in when we're looking for cuts."

But officials aren't discouraged and say the need won't go away.

"I think it will happen eventually," Yarbrough said. "Safety should be a major concern in Fort Collins. As the city continues to grow, crime will as well. We need to have all the resources we can."

Originally published April 13, 2006

Scrubbing out graffiti
Linton area neighbors start watch program
By DEON HAMPTON
DeonHampton@coloradoan.com

Wanting to maintain order in the community, residents in the area of Linton Elementary School are planning to begin a neighborhood watch program.

Lisa Poppaw-Schinnerer, president of the Parent Teacher Organization for Linton Elementary, is helping to start a neighborhood watch for Harmony Trailer Park, English Ranch, Fox Meadows, Woodland Park and Sunstone, the neighborhoods that surround Linton.

Poppaw-Schinnerer said she got more than 50 signatures from residents who attended an April 19 neighborhood meeting with Fort Collins police and Poudre School District officials.

The meeting was to identify specific problems the community has faced, and Poppaw-Schinnerer said the residents who signed the list are willing and ready to help with the watch programs.

Last fall, there was a rash of incidents in the Harmony Trailer Park,
just east of Harmony Road and Timberline Road, including tagging - spray-painting - nearby fences, Poppaw-Schinnerer said.

Those incidents have neighbors a little concerned, she said.

"I'm not trying to overstate the problem, but being proactive is always a good thing," Popaw-Schinnerer said.

Barry Gentry, 38, who lives in the English Ranch neighborhood, said the problems can quickly be nipped in the bud.

"I think what we're seeing is probably the same things that are going on in other neighborhoods. Kids are hanging out at parks later.

"Any time there are problems in the neighborhood, we have to protect and report things. We won't tolerate these problems," Gentry said.

Since August, there have been 15 reports of "criminal mischief," including tagging at Harmony Trailer Park, according to police documents.

Having a neighborhood watch program addresses the concerns that were raised at the meeting, such as graffiti and intimidation, said Cindy Carrington, a resident of Woodland Park.

The second is community awareness, said Carrington, who is willing to become president of the watch program for Woodland Park.

What it takes is for someone to do the legwork and call residents, she said.

You have to know who your neighbors are and get them involved,
Carrington said.

Communities have already started preparing for the watch programs. Sunstone and Fox Meadows have established their own Web sites.

The Fort Collins police department assigns officers to each neighborhood watch group to help with training and local information.

Susan Vance, Fort Collins police crime prevention officer, helps provide initial information for neighborhoods starting a watch program and then instructs the members on personal safety, home security and the neighborhood watch concept.

Participating neighbors select a block captain or coordinator to
organize meetings and relay information to members, stay up-to-date on new residents and make efforts to involve the elderly, parents and young people.

Originally published May 2, 2006