William Harris drove a Jaguar and paid cash for everything, while his wife, Lisa, sported diamonds and a gold cross necklace.
“He didn’t seem to have a job, and they appeared to be wealthy. I guess that was other people’s money,” Rebecca Blackmer said Monday as officials prepared to transport the Harrises from Seattle to New York to face federal fraud charges.
Blackmer is one of at least 15 alleged Colorado victims of the Harrises, who lived in Golden for about a year, according to arrest warrants filed in Jefferson County District Court.
“Looking back, I don’t know how I could have been so stupid,” said Blackmer, a Golden businesswoman who lost $15,000. She blames financial pressures for making a bad decision.
The trail of the two alleged con artists, who were arrested in Washington state June 20, snakes through Wisconsin, Georgia, New York, Indiana and Montana after getting its start in a Colorado casino.
Authorities contend the Harrises bilked people – including family members – out of thousands of dollars by offering to help them by using close contacts with Vice President Dick Cheney and national security to make investments in Iraqi oil and reconstruction.
“I’ve arrested lots of thieves in my career, but I never ran into a con man who was this smooth,” Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent Greg Sadar said of William Harris.
William Harris, 49, has at least 11 felony arrests from 1983 to 1998 and has served time in federal, state and county facilities.
In March 2006, Sadar received a complaint from an Evergreen woman who said William Harris befriended her while playing slot machines at the Isle of Capri casino in Black Hawk.
William Harris told the woman he was a financial adviser to Cheney, the affidavit said, and asked her to write him a $13,500 check for an investment, which he cautioned her was “very secret.” Two friends told the woman it sounded like a scam, and she reported it.
Sadar looked at William Harris’ bank accounts and found a list of people who had written him large personal checks.
As Sadar contacted people on the list, “almost to a person, they said, ‘I just got ripped off, didn’t I?”‘ he said. “I feel really bad for them. The money is gone.”
Lisa Harris, 31, would spot “marks” – middle-class people who were “relatively sophisticated” – for her husband to approach, Sadar said. Lisa Harris picked up the money, he added.
For a year, Sadar pursued the Harrises as they moved across the country, borrowing a car from a church group in one state and dumping it in another.
“It’s been a nightmare,” Sadar said, praising the FBI for its hard work. “I was always a couple of days behind them (the Harrises).”
People should determine whether someone is licensed before making an investment, Sadar said, adding the caution: “If it sounds too good to be true, it is.”
Staff writer Ann Schrader can be reached at 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com.
