posted on: Friday, April 24, 2009

By Gary Snyder

Americans are being bombarded with bad financial news. Some of it because of bad decision-making on their own or someone else's part. They hopefully will raise their ire on the current assault of the charitable sector and religious organizations, by Ponzi perpetrators and others.

I wrote an article a couple of months ago that touched on this matter. Now there has been a flurry of such schemes. I touched on Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme targeted his fellow Jews and Minnesotan Tom Petters who took $3.5 billion from his fellow evangelical Christian parishioners who were pastors, church groups and nonprofits

Now there is Clelia A. Flores who operated a $23 million investment scheme targeted at California’s Hispanic-American community. She solicited investors through word of mouth at churches and others places throughout the Hispanic- American community.

Terence Mayfield defrauded his fellow congregants at the Tom’s River (NJ) The Church of Grace and Peace of more than $1 million through two Ponzi schemes real estate investment schemes.

Northern Californians Anthony Vassallo and Kenneth Kenitzer orchestrated $40 million investment fraud many of whom he met through Vassallo’s church in this classic Ponzi scheme.

Targeting members of the Chinese-American community in Dallas and in California, Weizhan Tang, a Canadian, defrauded investors of up to $75 million with his and his partner’s Ponzi scheme.

Dennis Bolze of Gatlinburg who operated a commodity pool in a manner akin to a Ponzi scheme took in between $20 million and $21 million from about 100 investors, nearly half of whom live in Europe or other places outside the U.S. and some of whom were Foundations.

Paul Greenwood, 61, and Stephen Walsh, 64 who ran WG Trading Company LP and Westridge Capital management Inc. of Connecticut and California left little of the nearly billion dollars that were invested by mostly of charitable and university foundations, and retirement and pension plans. The University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, have sued the defendants seeking to recoup the $114 million they invested in the funds.

The effects of just the Madoff debacle probably wiped out a generation of Jewish wealth and philanthropy. The consequence to grant makers and others in both the Jewish and secular communities amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars of much needed services.

The epidemic of Ponzi schemes and other ruses seem to just be hitting the radar screen of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Justice Department and the FBI. With substantial sentencing for the abusers, we may be able to head off this seemingly massive outbreak.



Gary R. Snyder is the author of Nonprofits: On the Brink. He is a frequent lecturer and author of articles in numerous publications and blogs. His email is gary.r.snyder@gmail.com; website: www.garyrsnyder.com, phone: 248.324.3700.