If it’s so easy to get rich buying and selling real estate, why aren’t the hucksters doing it?
Instead, they’re on TV and in print ads, hawking seminars, books and investment opportunities.
Englewood-based Mile High Capital Group took about $22million from 800 real estate investors nationwide.
Founder Rick Dryer, 57, portrayed himself in seminars as a millionaire homebuilder and the author of a book on real estate investing. There was a picture of his book cover in Mile High’s promotional materials, but the book didn’t exist, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Neither did most of the duplexes Mile High sold to investors. Mile High took deposits for nearly 1,200 duplexes. It built fewer than 50 of them before it fell into bankruptcy court in January.
Colorado Securities Commissioner Fred Joseph has been investigating the company for about a year and sued its principals in October.
Last week, a grand jury delivered a 58-count indictment against Dryer (who now lives in North Carolina) and two associates, Richard Darrow, 41, of Littleton and Jeffrey Dietz, 36, of Parker. The indictment alleges theft, securities fraud, conspiracy and racketeering.
Dryer’s attorney issued a statement last week saying his client didn’t do it. No word yet from Darrow or Dietz, who simply hung up when I called him at home.
It’s amazing that anybody ever gave these guys a dime. Perhaps the lure of real estate riches keeps investors from questioning the slicksters taking their money. Dryer is a convicted felon who began his securities-fraud career in Wisconsin in the 1970s. He then moved to Colorado, where he pleaded no contest to securities-fraud charges in 1987.
Darrow is also a convicted felon who has been in trouble for everything from drug possession to auto theft. In 1999, he was featured in a CBS News broadcast on identity theft, according to a 2005 report in Denver Business Journal, which has detailed Mile High’s shenanigans.
Darrow talked about Dumpster diving to steal someone’s data.
“On a good day, I could make $5,000 in cash and another $7,000 to $8,000 in merchandise,” Darrow told CBS.
Then there’s Dietz, who is not a felon. Dietz married a preacher’s daughter from a small town in Nebraska. The story of this courtship was detailed in The Denver Post’s Life styles section on April 2.
“I’ve always had the gift of gab,” said Dietz, explaining how he wooed his bride and won over her preacher father. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just the way I am.”
Another Mile High executive, Andy McFaul, was not indicted. McFaul formerly served as Mile High’s chief operating officer. He joined the company in 2004, just weeks after pleading guilty to felony theft. He stole $10,000 worth of tools from construction workers.
Dryer would like McFaul to be the McFall Guy. Dryer has previously fingered McFaul for not building those hundreds of duplex homes that Mile High had sold. Last week, Dryer’s attorney, Patrick Ridley, built on that theme.
“Although Mr. Dryer founded the company, he was not running it when the alleged acts occurred,” said Ridley. “Although it is unclear whether any crime occurred at Mile High, it is crystal clear that the wrong person was charged.”
McFaul has hired attorney Phil Feigin, who was once Colorado’s securities commissioner. Feigin told me his client did not cut a deal with prosecutors to avoid an indictment. Feigin also said Dryer deliberately put McFaul beneath him to take the blame.
It’s always good for prosecutors when people start blaming each other. But Feigin has dealt with Dryer before.
From 1979 to 1982, Feigin was an ambitious young lawyer in Wisconsin’s Commission of Securities office. There, he pursued Dryer for securities violations.
In 1982, when Feigin joined Colorado’s Division of Securities, there was a fresh securities-fraud complaint on his desk when he arrived. It was Dryer, again.
Feigin is now in private practice. Last August, McFaul called him for help with his troubles at Mile High.
“I said, ‘What’s this guy’s name?’ He said, ‘Rick Dryer.’ I said, ‘I’ve already convicted this guy twice.’ … I’ve seen doubles, but never a triple.”
Al Lewis’ column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Respond to Lewis at denverpostbloghouse.com/lewis, 303-954-1967 or alewis@denverpost.com.
