An alleged $500 million Ponzi scheme preyed on Mormons. It ended with FBI gunfire. [View all]

Source: Washington Post with Las Vegas Review Journal

An alleged $500 million Ponzi scheme preyed on Mormons. It ended with FBI gunfire.

In Las Vegas, a lawyer with huge gambling debts is accused of a financial fraud that left hundreds of victims in its wake

By Lizzie Johnson
February 1, 2023 at 9:00 a.m. EST

Las Vegas investigative reporter Jeff German was slain outside his home on Sept. 2; a Clark County official he had investigated is charged in his death. To continue German’s work, The Washington Post teamed up with his newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, to complete one of the stories he’d planned to pursue before his killing. A folder on German’s desk contained court documents he’d started to gather about an alleged Ponzi scheme that left hundreds of victims – many of them Mormon – in its wake. Post reporter Lizzie Johnson began investigating, working with Review-Journal photographer Rachel Aston.

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The Las Vegas attorney, then 49, had been anticipating this visit for months, he would tell an FBI hostage negotiator. He’d already drafted letters to his wife and four children, explaining what he could and describing how much he loved them.

On this Thursday in March, Beasley knew his time was up. He placed the letters — along with a note addressed to the FBI and a zip drive of computer files — upstairs on the desk in his office. Then, alone in the house, he went to the front door. He paused, the left side of his body obscured by the door frame.

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Authorities had long suspected Beasley of running a massive Ponzi scheme with his business partner, Jeffrey Judd, that mainly targeted Mormons, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are often called. The investment was pitched as a nearly risk-free opportunity to earn annual returns of 50 percent by lending money to slip-and-fall victims awaiting checks after the settlement of their lawsuits.

There was just one problem, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged in a civil complaint. None of it was real.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/02/01/mormon-ponzi-scheme-vegas-fbi/

Non-paywalled link: https://wapo.st/3WRuHI5