Mormon ponzi schemer pleads not guilty

I was recently confronted by a Mormon reader who claimed her religious kindred were "too moral" to get caught up in petty sex crimes and money schemes. I explained that the reason I did not report on Mormons is that my news filters were not set up to catch them. She said “bullshit”. I said, “Well let's see.”

Judging from first news filter report on Mormons and the LDS, I could make reporting on the proclivities of wayward Mormons a whole cult sub category of Hypocrisy Watch. Most of the crimes seem to be financial though. Take this first case, Mormon homophobe Claud “Rick” Koeber. His crimes are purely financial. He stands accused of exploiting his fellow Mormons via a Ponzi scheme. He’s pleaded not guilty.

Koerber -- who has billed himself as a "Capitalist, Mormon, Dad" -- promised people in the "Equity Mill" program they would earn large returns on loans to Founder's Capital using the equity in their homes, according to the indictment.

According to federal prosecutors, he usually did not buy real estate.

Instead, Koerber used about half the money he received -- about $50 million -- to make payments to the earlier investors as part of the Ponzi scheme, according to the indictment. "In this way, defendant Koerber created the false impression that the businesses were profitable, that the investments were safe, secure, and that interest was being paid."

Now Koerber is not in the clergy so to speak, but since the LDS has no professional clergy, anyone who wears their religion on their sleeve is fair game. There will be more to follow.

Technorati tags: Mormons, LDS, Hypocrisy