New Court Date

According to information from U.S. Magistrate in Knoxville, TN, the trial date for Joyce Allen and Kay Thomas has been reset to June 4th, 2013.  I don't know if others are keeping track but that's nearly a year from their arrest date and nine months from the first trial date.  Let's hope that justice can also be brought even if slowly.

All's Quiet

Thus far we've found no information from the trial that was supposed to have happened January 7th.  In fact, we don't even know that a trial actually happened.  There's no word on it on the internet or from sources such as the prosecution....government or otherwise.  So much for victims rights.

A Trial Date Today

With their trial scheduled for today and looking for any report on the outcome, we had to post a story a little like ours.  It's a little dated but still work reading some excerpts below.  You can read the whole article at The Daily Times .  If you want to read some court documentation go to United States District Court

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

All Maryville resident Kent Burleson wanted to do was retire comfortably.

Unfortunately for him, he was one of many investors who lost their retirement savings as part of an investment fraud case involving Louisville accounting firm J. Allen & Associates.

The firm’s owner, Joyce E. Allen, and her former employee, Sharon K. Thomas, are currently under an indictment by a federal grand jury for several counts of counterfeit securities, which also include conspiracy to commit money laundering, fraudulent investment control, fraudulent securities and fraudulent investment contracts. Thomas faces just one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The arrests came after a multi-agency federal investigation into Knoxville-based Benchmark Capital Inc., a venture capital firm originating in Menlo Park, Calif. Its Knoxville office, formerly located on Merchants Center Drive, closed several months ago.  The indictment stated that “one of the business purposes of J. Allen Inc. was to identify potential investors through providing tax planning and tax preparation services, then defrauding those investors by selling them investments that Allen knew to be worthless.” Allen and Thomas are scheduled for trial on Sept. 25 in U.S. District Court in Knoxville.

Burleson was one of many investment victims who appeared during the pretrial hearing in Knoxville on Monday. He later spoke with The Daily Times about his frustrations of losing his retirement savings, which took him about 30 years to build as a lineman and splicer for AT&T.
“I first started with (Benchmark) in late March of 2009,” Burleson said. “I moved my pension over from AT&T from where I retired. I also moved my 401(k) over. From there on, I drew an interest check every month. The balance I put in there the first day is what the balance was three years later — it didn’t go up, it didn’t go down. That’s what I lived off of every month.
“The FBI froze the (investor) accounts. From there on, I haven’t drawn a penny, and I probably never will,” he added.

Warning signs
Burleson said understandably that it initially shocked him when he heard the news of the frozen accounts, and how he and other investors had lost their savings.  “I should have known something was going on,” he said. “In early January, the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) out of Atlanta called me and a few other investors and they asked me where Benchmark was investing this money, and I had no idea. If I had been smart, I would have gone over there and taken my money out. “What happened was me and one of the other investors went over (to Benchmark) the next day and we told Joyce Allen about the SEC calling me, and she told us everything was fine,” Burleson continued. “She said they were investigating some woman who had worked for her for a while for embezzlement. She told us we had nothing to worry about. That wasn’t true, because she knew something was going on. She knew the whole time.”

Burleson said that late last year, Allen talked him into refinancing his house and letting Benchmark borrow the equity.  “I made my house payments, insurance, taxes and all,” Burleson said. “I got a $67.50 check every month that I could use how I wanted to. They paid the mortgage for the first three months and then everything blew up and I had to pay it myself. When I first signed up, I owed $23,000 on my house, now I owe $76,000 and I have to buy it all over again. I loaned them the money, and now it’s all gone.”

‘Thoroughly investigate’
Burleson said that he works a part-time job, and they live off his wife’s disability income.  “When it came time to retire, I thought I had invested well,” Burleson said. “We got our knowledge from one of the other guys who retired. He’s been in that plan for 10 years. He told a few others, and we took him at his word. He thought (Benchmark) was on the up-and-up, too. I know six of us retired from the phone company invested with them, and that’s probably $3 million worth of investments. I lost $400,000 in cash. By the time I pay (my house) off, I’ll be dead.”

Burleson and three other defrauded investors have met with Knoxville attorneys, who are doing research on their behalf to see if there are any hidden funds that could be recovered, whether it be through insurance premiums or any accounts that are stored overseas. He said he will file a civil suit if more money is found.  “We have no idea where this is going to go,” Burleson said. “The charges brought against (Allen), if they find more money, whether they will bring up additional charges against her, we don’t know. But I hope they will.

Burleson concluded with a little advice for potential investors.
“Thoroughly investigate where you will put your money,” he said. “Talk to anybody to see if the company is on the up-and-up. I made a mistake and didn’t do that. Everything was running smooth and we figured if it worked good for (my colleague), we just basically stepped into it.”

Arrests Begin

It looks like things are starting to move along in this.  Especially at the local level which involved our retirement money and a portion of our home equity.  Joyce Allen, the owner of J Allen and Associates in Lousiville, TN, and her former employee Sharon Kay Thomas, have been charged in a multi-count indictment including securities fraud and money laundering. Joyce Allen was our accountant for over thirty years and I many times spoke with Kay Thomas many times on the phone concerning our annuity with Benchmark Captial.  They both made an initial court appearance this week and will be entering their pleas on Monday. 

The indictment states that some clients of the firm (including us) were "deliberately and fraudulently" induced to invest in Benchmark Capital, while Allen knew that the money was never legitimately invested but converted to her own use and to others known by the grand jury.  Needless-to-say, it's sickening to think that while we were working honestly and placing money into the Benchmark Capital annuity in order to to enter retirement soon, J Allen and others living and prospering from our money.  Our thoughts now rest in forgiving those who wronged us and going forward by the grace of God to rebuild as we can.  Our thoughts and prayers to out to those less fortunate.

Read the article at knoxsnews.com .  According to other articles the money laundering involved a series of checks to Benchmark Capital, totaling $1.3 million, deposited by J Allen and Kay Thomas into a bank account that Allen had opened on Candler's instructions. Following Candler's death, the indictment alleges, Thomas, acting on Allen's instructions, withdrew from that account $946,326 in the form of nine cashier's checks. The checks were payable to various individuals, including Thomas, Allen and others including some relatives of the two women.

U.S. Marshals Service photos -
  

Joyce Allen





Kay Thomas



The indictment states that, "The business purpose of Benchmark was to defraud investors by taking their funds in exchange for worthless and nonexistent investments," the indictment states. "One of the purposes of (Allen's firm) was to identify potential investors (from among its clients) then (to defraud them) by selling them investments that Allen knew to be worthless."

Feel free to comment!

Southern Bankers

Some recent searching on the web turn up that Charles D. "C.D." Candler spent over $500,000 in a failed try to start a bank four years ago.  It appears that his behind the scenes role was necessitated by his record that forbade him from involvement with a bank operation.  Plans for the Greenville-based Southern Bankers bank included branches in Knoxville and in Loudoun County Va. by 2011.  There's some interesting reading at knoxsnews.com .  Candler fronted all of the money for Southern Bankers and stayed just under the radar of the FDIC.  Interestingly enough, his board of directors was to include many of his friends and acquaintances from Tennessee and South Carolina, as well as a cousin. Of the 11 principal shareholders, at least four of the six holders of the largest blocks — 10,000 shares or more — included Candler's cousin, and three friends or associates from Tennessee.  One of which was Joyce Allen of the Blount County accounting firm, J Allen and Associates.  That's where our retirement entered the snare.  Maybe even more interesting is that former U.S. Senators Bob Dole and Trent Lott were recruited to be "Senior Advisors" to Southern Bankers.  You can find some information on that detail here and here.

Charles Candler

Candler's Home

Louisville Woman Learns She's an Apparent Victim of 'Reverse Mortgage' Scam

An associated video from Wate.com.

Louisville woman learns she's apparent victim of reverse mortgage scam: The federal investigation of an alleged mortgage scam based in Knoxville could potentially involve millions of dollars in losses to dozens of customers.

"Honest Businesses" ?

Based on information on wate.com it appears that some local neighbors in our home town in Blount County are starting to surface as victims of Charles D Candler and others.  Wate.com states that the fraud could potentially involve millions of dollars in losses to dozens of people.  Other reports stated hundreds of potential victims.  At this point our money (pardon the pun) in on hundreds of families.  Interesting that the IRS isn't talking about the case but not surprising since everything is under investigation at this point.

Here's some of yet another sad story brought about by this event.

"Joy Joines is proud of the home she and her late husband, Kenneth, built in a picturesque cove in Louisville. She calls it her 'little piece of heaven,' but she now fears she may lose everything. ... 'When I called that mortgage company to find out what was going on, they told me, sell it or sign the house over to them,' she said."  Do we need to comment any on the state of 'honest' mortgage companies in the aftermath of this tragedy?

According to the article, Joy Joines and her husband took out a 'reverse mortgage' July 2005 which enabled them to have access to a portion of the equity in their home to help raise two of her great grandchildren.  She states that J. Allen and Associates was who her husband went through to get the 'reverse mortgage'.  She visited Allen's accounting office in Louisville and they told her that she won't be getting a check anymore and that she had to make the house payment.  Based on Carl Bruner, a reverse mortgage specialist, this isn't a reverse mortgage.  Joines has been forced to hire an attorney to delay possible eviction over a mortgage she knows nothing about.

Even the 'honest' businesses seem to be jumping on board to rack in the booty.  Opinions?