News: Man accused of starting North Texas Disney tale

[chadster]

This guy was a real winner

 

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/headlines/20150205-tale-of-disney-theme-park-for-north-texas-duped-investors-out-of-millions-prosecutors-allege.ece

 

He told potential investors he had a secret source who tipped him off about a Walt Disney theme park and resort coming to North Texas.

 

But Thomas W. Lucas Jr. refused to identify his Disney “insider” even when questioned under oath by those suing him in court. When the FBI caught up with him, Lucas gave them the name of a dead man — a Hurricane Katrina transplant he had met in drug rehab, federal authorities said.

 

Lucas, 40, a member of a prominent Dallas-area real estate family, is accused of faking the Disney story to trick people into investing millions of dollars in land in Collin and Denton counties while he pocketed commissions from the sales. His federal fraud trial begins Monday in Sherman.

 

Neither Lucas nor his attorney could be reached for comment.

 

Investors say they overpaid for land they were told was on the fringes of the future theme park — land they hoped to flip to developers at a profit when the Disney announcement was made. They said in court documents that Lucas showed them fake and forged artist sketches, maps, site plans and other documents related to “Frontier Disney Dallas-Fort Worth” to dupe them into believing it was true.

 

The announcement never came. The Walt Disney Co. has repeatedly denied plans to build a theme park in North Texas.

 

Nevertheless, rumors of the attraction in Texas have circulated for more than a decade. The Dallas Morning News reported in 2009 about the persistence of the rumors. But not until now has someone faced trial on charges of trying to take advantage of that fairy tale.

 

Lucas was indicted in September 2013. He is charged with seven counts of wire fraud and one count of making false statements to the FBI about the alleged scam. Disney executives may testify during the trial, which is expected to last four to five days. The charges carry a penalty of up to 145 years in prison.

 

Prosecutors say that from 2006 to 2010, Lucas defrauded more than 50 investors out of about $14 million. Alleged victims include wealthy Chinese in Hong Kong, a former Dallas plastic surgeon, Dallas lawyers and others across the U.S.

 

Lucas worked for the Harry B. Lucas Co. from 2004 to 2008, the indictment says. The Carrollton-based real estate company got its start in 1975.

 

Investors claim in various lawsuits that the company president, Harry “Beau” Lucas Jr., Thomas Lucas’ uncle, also was behind the scheme. He has not been charged and has denied wrongdoing. Harry Lucas’ attorney, Scott Palmer, said his client has cooperated with the government and has more questions than answers about what occurred.

 

“The only common denominator between Harry ‘Beau’ Lucas and Thomas Lucas is their last name and a strained family relationship,” Palmer said. “These events have had enormous financial and personal impact on his family.”

 

Bill Thomas, who lives in North Dallas, said he invested more than $1 million. He said he was fooled by the official-looking documents. He said he suspects that people besides Thomas Lucas were involved given the scope and the sophisticated digital architectural plans he saw.

 

“They certainly sucked me in,” Thomas said, adding that he hoped the land he bought would eventually produce a profit because of its location in a future growth area.

 

‘The Shops at Disney’

 

It’s unclear how the FBI’s investigation began, but some investors who sued talked about going to the “authorities,” court records show.

 

In legal filings, Lucas family lawyers portrayed their accusers as “impatient” real estate investors who sued “to try to avoid taking a loss on a speculative real estate investment in the declining economy following the real estate bust of 2007.”

 

Harry Lucas, 62, said in court documents that he learned in 2005 about a large Disney resort planned for a location near Celina. He said he began soliciting investors that year.

 

A Lucas company spokeswoman said Thursday that everything Harry Lucas knew about the supposed development, he learned from his nephew.

 

Harry and Thomas Lucas held investor presentations — where cellphones were not allowed — that included a slide show of artist sketches and diagrams of the Disney theme park and related development, according to lawsuits. Investors were shown allegedly forged correspondence between high-end retailers and Disney about opening stores in “The Shops at Disney.”

 

A forged Southwest Airlines letter to the Disney Co. mentioned the airline’s plans to service “Frontier Disney Airport,” court records say.

 

At one investor presentation in Dallas in 2008, Thomas and Harry Lucas said that Disney had secretly begun acquiring about 15,000 acres in North Texas and that an official announcement was “imminent,” according to court records.

 

The pitch

 

The pitch was that investors had to begin buying land near the theme park before the announcement, which they said could come during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics or, later, during the Super Bowl. The announcement would boost the value of their land, which they could then sell to developers at a big profit.

 

“This will not make history but simply repeat it,” said a prospectus that Thomas Lucas showed to investors. “In order to see what property values do when Disney comes to town, we only need to look to Disney World in Orlando. … We have positioned ourselves for a great opportunity by placing under contract over $200 million of property,” most of which was “next to the front entrance or shares a border with the park.”

 

Numerous partnerships, joint ventures and limited-liability companies such as Lucas Celina 209 Ltd. were set up to begin acquiring land in the area. In one case, the purchase price of more than 100 acres in Denton County came to $6.3 million. Investors later said the land was worth “substantially less” and claimed damages of about $2 million.

 

Dr. Steven A. Doores, who has a business reviewing workers’ compensation claims, said in a lawsuit that he invested more than $1 million in the Lucas Disney scheme. Doores said Harry Lucas told him his nephew had gotten the theme park documents from someone who worked for Disney and had access to the company’s “inner circle,” including top Disney executives, court record show.

 

Doores is referred to as a victim in the indictment and said he will testify against Thomas Lucas.

 

Investor Jimmy Dean said Lucas told him he had grown up with his Disney insider and they “always had each other’s back,” court records say. Lucas said his friend tipped him off about the Disney park as his way of “repaying their childhood allegiances,” records show.

 

The identity of Thomas Lucas’ secret source varied depending on whom he spoke to and when, prosecutors say. It was a childhood friend, a lifelong friend, someone he graduated from high school with, and a friend of a friend.

 

Thomas Lucas told one person that his source tipped him off while “they were floating on the Guadalupe River” during a trip to the Austin area for a bachelor party, court records say. Lucas told others that he and the source traveled together to London and went to strip clubs and nice restaurants, prosecutors said.

 

When the FBI questioned him about it in 2013, Thomas Lucas gave them the name of a dead man.

 

That person was Michael Watson Sr., a Hurricane Katrina transplant with a drug habit who delivered milk and worked other odd jobs before committing suicide in 2012. Thomas Lucas met him at a North Texas methadone rehab clinic where the two were receiving treatment, prosecutors said.

 

Watson would pick up Thomas Lucas and take him to the rehab clinic because Lucas’ parents had taken away his car, prosecutor Christopher Eason said in a court document.

 

Said Eason: “Lucas chose to name Watson as his source because he is dead and therefore cannot directly rebut Lucas’ claims.”

 

False documents and more are contained in the link to the article for those looking for a quiet read.

[Jew]

Aside from the fact that his picture is the most hilarious thing I have seen today....

 

I don't have sympathy for his "victims." If you're already a millionaire and couldn't see through how outlandish that proposal was....you're just a greedy fool.

 

A Disney airport?

[BeansproutMidget]

*Slow clap*

[G$ Kurt]

What baffles me the most is how anybody with a brain would think that Southwest Airlines, would sign a deal that directly competes with Love Field, THEIR HEADQUARTERS. It takes a two second internet search to figure that out.

 

Then again I also wouldn't think there would be many people dumb enough to listen and believe the first 20 red flags in his story.

[robbalvey]

Woah, check out this really screwed up story...

 

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/09/01/north-texas-man-sentenced-to-17-years-in-prison-for-fictional-disney-scheme/

North Texas Man Sentenced To 17+ Years For Fictional Disney Scheme

SHERMAN (CBSDFW.COM) – A 35-year-old Plano man has been sentenced to federal prison for defrauding investors.

Thomas W. Lucas, Jr., was convicted on Feb. 13, 2015, of seven counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to the FBI and was sentenced to 210 months in federal prison Tuesday.

 

According to information presented in court, from 2006 to 2010, Lucas devised and executed an elaborate scheme to defraud approximately 280 investors out of approximately $20 million by telling them he had insider information regarding a Walt Disney resort and theme parks planned for the North Texas area. Lucas’s scheme to defraud solicited two types of investors – those that invested in options to purchase land supposedly near the Walt Disney property and those that actually purchased land supposedly near the Walt Disney property.

 

While information presented in Court showed tens of millions of dollars more were raised based on Lucas’s fraudulent Disney information, the value of the land purchased was subtracted to determine the overall loss amount of approximately $20 million. The 65 investors that invested in options to purchase land lost all of their money invested, which was slightly over $8 million, and received no interest in land.

According to Lucas, the Disney Resort and Theme Park was originally set to be called, “The King Ranch Project,” but that changed in 2007 to “Frontier Disney DFW,” both of which were fabricated.

 

Disney witnesses, including Disney’s then Chairman of Parks and Resorts and executive assistants, testified at the trial that the information presented to investors by Lucas was not authentic and that Disney never had any intentions of opening a Disney resort and theme park in north Texas at any time. Lucas pocketed approximately $450,000 from fees and commissions gleaned from the various land deals closed on his fraudulent Disney information.

When confronted by the FBI about the scheme, Lucas falsely blamed the Disney information on a man he had previously met at a methadone rehabilitation clinic, who is now deceased. Lucas was indicted by a federal grand jury on Sep. 11, 2013.

 

Lucas was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $8,456,360.00 to the investors who invested in options to purchase land, and was immediately remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.

 

Another article:

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/headlines/20150901-plano-man-gets-stiff-sentence-in-disney-fraud-land-scheme.ece

 

SHERMAN — A Plano man who swindled investors with a fake story about a Disney theme park coming to North Texas was sentenced Tuesday to 171/2 years in federal prison.

 

Thomas W. Lucas Jr., 35, was convicted by a jury in February of seven federal counts of wire fraud and one count of lying to the FBI.

 

Lucas claimed a Disney source tipped him off about the theme park, and he used the hoax to get people to invest in land — which garnered him large commissions.

 

U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant said Lucas’ actions “caused a lot of damage to a lot of people,” and the judge doled out a punishment that was at the very top of the sentencing guideline range.

 

He also ordered Lucas to pay $8.4 million in restitution.

 

“I see no remorse whatsoever,” Mazzant said Tuesday.

 

Lucas read a brief statement in which he said he was “heartbroken and ashamed” about how his actions hurt those he loves.

 

His defense attorney, Marlo Cadeddu, sought a new trial Monday, saying newly discovered evidence appeared to implicate her client’s recently deceased uncle. Other evidence cast doubts on the credibility of one of the government’s witnesses, she said. Mazzant will rule on that motion later.

 

Federal prosecutors said Lucas profited from his lie about a “Frontier Disney DFW” theme park that was to be built near Celina. He forged official-looking Disney letters and altered maps and photographs that he claimed were given to him by his secret Disney source.

 

The material, which he used in presentations, was intended to trick investors into buying land in rural Collin and Denton counties that they hoped to flip to developers for a profit after the Disney announcement.

 

Lucas’ scheme defrauded about 280 investors out of about $20 million from 2006 to 2010, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Texas. Investors included former SMU basketball star Jon Koncak.

 

Lucas earned more than $448,000 in sales commissions and fees on the land deals, prosecutors said.

 

He spent some of that money on a lavish 2007 London vacation during which he was chauffeured around town, dined at celebrity hangouts, shopped at high-end stores and went nightclubbing with VIP treatment. The trip cost more than $37,000.

 

Much of the money lost was due to risky option contracts. Under those agreements, investors controlled the land for a fee, but for only a short time period, such as 60 to 90 days. If they didn’t close on the due date or pay for an extension, they lost the money.

 

The 65 investors who purchased options lost all of their money, which came to slightly more than $8 million, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Eason said the defense tried to make it seem like the investments were geared toward the future extension of the Dallas North Tollway in that area. But the draw all along, he said, was Disney. He said one of the duped investors had hoped to establish a trust fund for his autistic son. His money is all gone, Eason said.

 

Cadeddu said in court and in filings that some investors not only didn’t lose money but stand to profit eventually when their land is sold, based on current sales prices in the area.

 

One investor, John Lucas, who is no relation to the family, said he saw a big change in Thomas Lucas during the time he was attending Bible study behind bars. He said Thomas Lucas can contribute to society in many ways.

 

“This young man’s heart is pure,” he said.

 

But another investor, James Dean, told the judge that Lucas is arrogant and had only contempt for those who raised questions about the Disney investment.

 

“Thomas Lucas is a pathological liar,” Dean said. “He has no remorse.”

 

Dean said he lost a lot of money and friends due to Lucas, whom he vouched for many times.

 

“You lose faith in your fellow man,” Dean said.

Edited September 2, 2015 by robbalvey

[cfc]

When confronted by the FBI about the scheme, Lucas falsely blamed the Disney information on a man he had previously met at a methadone rehabilitation clinic, who is now deceased.

 

[StealthFan]

^Didnt you know that meth addicts are basically like Dippin Dots people when it comes to high level theme park information........

[chadster]

Aside from the fact that his picture is the most hilarious thing I have seen today....

 

I don't have sympathy for his "victims." If you're already a millionaire and couldn't see through how outlandish that proposal was....you're just a greedy fool.

 

A Disney airport?

 

Even more hilarious, he's been sentenced to 17 years. Dreamvision better think twice...

[DJeXeL]

This is dumb on so many levels it's sad.

[KBrylczyk]

Aside from the fact that his picture is the most hilarious thing I have seen today....:

 

Needs a fedora and it'd be perfect.

[DJeXeL]

^Agreed.

[coasterkid124]

So these people just shed millions of dollars on land, all because a guy that looks like the Walley World security guard told them that Disney was going to build there? Okay, that's on them. Always check your sources first. The fault is on them for believing this guy.

[Samuel]

So these people just shed millions of dollars on land, all because a guy that looks like the Walley World security guard told them that Disney was going to build there? Okay, that's on them. Always check your sources first. The fault is on them for believing this guy.

 

No, the fault is clearly on Lucas, who attempted to defraud investors and did defraud investors. Even if it seems laughable, the gullibility of the land buyers isn't a punishable offense, nor is it a determining factor in whether or not this guy acted fraudulently.

[coasterkid124]

Legally, that may be the case. What Lucas did was wrong and he is getting punished for it. It is pretty funny that the investors believed him though. If it were me, I wouldn't be throwing around money unless I was completely sure Disney was building.

[Samuel]

Legally, that may be the case. What Lucas did was wrong and he is getting punished for it. It is pretty funny that the investors believed him though. If it were me, I wouldn't be throwing around money unless I was completely sure Disney was building.

 

There's an empty lot just a few miles down the road from my place that once had a small strip mall, a couple of gas stations, and a few fast food restaurants. A real estate investor bought out every business, tore everything down, and wrote in the local paper that he was negotiating to flip the whole site to Walmart. Walmart eventually backed out of a deal, it never materialized, and the lot now only sees life with pop-up farmers' markets each fall.

 

The buyer took some risk that turned out to be tough luck for him, but the premise of investments wouldn't be possible if the certain fate of every piece of real estate was known. I'm with you on wise investments, and I don't feel bad for the lot buyer in my example, but no one sat him down, showed him mock-up artwork of Walmart's alleged plans, and said that the lot had to be purchased before Walmart would move in. For Lucas to do that with the Disney plans is despicable, and then to do it for four years is something else. I know that investors with $ aren't the most sympathetic characters given their apparent good financial standing, but they were illegally presented with 100% fiction here, so I feel for their being deceived.

[larrygator]

The best financial advice I ever got. "If it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true"

[Hilltopper39]

The best financial advice I ever got. "If it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true"

 

The best gambling advice I ever got. "If it sounds too good to be true, it's probably not, take the points"

[Ape]

I have no sympathy for the investors. It sucks for them yes but they gambled on a potential profit and lost. They said it themselves that they wanted to flip the land for profit. People do this sort of thing all of time and try and get inside information, I would think with investing that much money you would do as much reasearch as possible first.