[bradino]

My question involves criminal law for the state of: Washington

Several family members and I have invested in a business in Washington with the original contracts stating that our investments would be paid back with interest in June of 2008. The owner has given us a variety of flimsy excuses for not following through with this and we we are now wondering how to proceed. The business - as we now find out - has no physical assets and the owner is close to bankruptcy himself (we have found out he had filed for bankruptcy in 2004).

We have also discovered that there are a number of outstanding bills to be paid and that the owner has likely been using our investment money to pay back his own previous personal debts. He has not personally filed income tax for the past 4 years and he has refused to give us current financial data for the business. We all have signed promissory notes and security agreements guaranteed by the business and the owner personally.

Would anyone out there have advice on what our next steps should be? Can we ask State authorities to investigate fraud? Since there doesn't seem to be anything to attach a lien to (no real estate holdings of either the business or the owner) or bank accounts we don't have hope of getting our $ back - but we would like to make sure this person doesn't have a chance to take advantage of others.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[OhMy]

My question involves criminal law for the state of: Washington

Several family members and I have invested in a business in Washington with the original contracts stating that our investments would be paid back with interest in June of 2008. The owner has given us a variety of flimsy excuses for not following through with this and we we are now wondering how to proceed. The business - as we now find out - has no physical assets and the owner is close to bankruptcy himself (we have found out he had filed for bankruptcy in 2004).

We have also discovered that there are a number of outstanding bills to be paid and that the owner has likely been using our investment money to pay back his own previous personal debts. He has not personally filed income tax for the past 4 years and he has refused to give us current financial data for the business. We all have signed promissory notes and security agreements guaranteed by the business and the owner personally.

Would anyone out there have advice on what our next steps should be? Can we ask State authorities to investigate fraud? Since there doesn't seem to be anything to attach a lien to (no real estate holdings of either the business or the owner) or bank accounts we don't have hope of getting our $ back - but we would like to make sure this person doesn't have a chance to take advantage of others.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

This sounds like a ponzi scheme. You can report this to the FBI

http://www.fbi.gov/homepage.htm

Since this person filed for bankruptcy in 2004, they can not do that again for 8 years or until 2012.