Original subtitles

In a mountain retreat, a big game hunter and a lifelong con man stalk their

prey.

Once I finally came to the realization that this thing is just a scam, it was

too late.

No victim is too big or too small.

They took 25 bucks from a 15 -year -old paper boy.

If you had it to give, they'd take it.

Until a trusted employee decides to bring them down.

from the inside.

If I just walked away, nobody would stop them. They would just keep taking

money. And later, in a tough real estate market, Hawaiian mortgage broker James

Lowe claims there's big money to be made by fixing bad credit scores.

12 % return in 90 days, which is astronomical.

But his investors' money goes straight into a veritable museum of collectibles.

These are opal -encrusted, handmade pool cues.

When the bubble bursts, the treasure's missing. So is James Lowe.

The judge comes out.

Where's Mr. Lowe?

February 19, 2003.

In a conference room somewhere in Chicago, four men sit down to a meeting.

A wealthy real estate developer

and his associates, seen here with their backs to the camera, are looking for an

investment that will help finance their developments.

The two men sitting across from them are Norman Schmidt and Chuck Lewis.

They have a can't -miss opportunity.

All you do is put it into the trust, and we leverage your money and do it for

you. And I make a lot of money on you, because I get paid every day.

And so I'm using your money for 30 days.

But you're guaranteeing me 10 % a month. 10 % a month. A month.

That's great.

Schmidt claims to buy and sell multi -billion dollar bank bonds on a secret

market available only to the world's wealthy elite.

He says it's where captains of industry and even presidents make their millions.

What Schmidt

and Lewis don't know is that this conference

room has a hidden camera.

And the developer is an FBI agent.

This is the final chapter in a $56 million fraud that has ensnared more

thousand victims across the globe.

Reaping the profits, the con artists have lived like royalty.

Appropriately enough, their story begins in a castle.

Nestled high in the Colorado Rockies, sits the Redstone Castle, a 42 -room

mansion.

Here we are. Welcome to the Redstone Castle.

Sid Lang manages the property built in 1897 by coal magnate John Cleveland

Osgood.

Osgood used this as his private home, but he also used it as a hunting lodge.

More than a century later, in April 2000, the Redstone will again be used as

hunting lodge of sorts.

The big game this time, wealthy investors.

And the hunter, Norman Schmidt, who calls himself an investment manager and

spends his life hopping from one get -rich -quick scheme to the next.

Investigator Chuck Reinhardt has followed Schmidt for years.

You and I, we go to work every day, expect a paycheck at the end of the

Norm, his personality just wasn't suited to that.

If he could find a way to get that winning lottery ticket or some other

make that big score, that's what he was looking for.

Schmidt and an associate run an investment fund called the Reserve

Trust, which claims to trade in international bank debentures.

Supposedly, these debentures are huge pools of money sold by banks around the

world.

And elite traders can make millions buying and selling them on a secret

The castle is the perfect setting to wine and dine potential investors.

But longtime caretaker Sid Lang quickly sours to the new owners of Redstone and

to the parade of investors who flock there.

The characters that they would have visit them were shady and the meetings

were... quiet and a hidden part of the carriage house, and everything really

pretty soon just started getting really shady feeling.

And their habit of hosting alcohol -drenched all -night parties sullies the

castle's good name.

I tried to introduce Norm to the community.

But then people would say, oh, you know, where's the new owner?

Oftentimes I'd say, he's over, see that drunk over by the bar?

In June, Lange is fed up and decides to quit her job and leave Redstone. But as

a parting gift, she's offered a chance to invest in the fund.

In exchange for investing $50 ,000 of her savings, she's promised a monthly

return of 10%. So out of $50 ,000, he said you could be bringing in up to $5

,000 a month possibly at some point.

Though Lange finds Norm Schmidt and his investors distasteful, She's taken in by

the promise of an easier life.

The whole time when you're struggling and money is hard to come by, and you

think for once maybe I've got an investment that I can hold my own and

to worry for the rest of my life about where my next dime is coming from.

Lang invests $50 ,000, moves to Denver, and buys a new home.

But signs of trouble begin almost immediately.

The monthly statements that were promised never come.

Two, three, four months go by and I'm not hearing anything and calling

frantically because I feel like they're jerking me around, which they are,

and just couldn't get anybody to respond.

In late 2000, the castle is shuttered. Schmidt is nowhere to be found.

The fund is finished, and investors, about 100 of them, are out some $8

Lange faces reality.

Once I finally just came to the realization that this thing is just a

was too late.

It was too late. I was in a home that I couldn't afford, behind in medical bills

that we couldn't afford.

Investor Sid Lang is out 50 grand.

Though she will eventually recoup some of that in a civil lawsuit, the damage

done. She loses her dream home to foreclosure.

When you get set back like that, you just really never get caught up.

It's like quicksand. You just can never dig your way out of that.

And I just never really did.

Now Schmidt wants another go at it.

He starts a new firm called Capital Holdings based on the lessons he learned

Reserve Foundation.

Former U .S. Attorney Wyatt Angelo says Schmidt reaches out to an old friend for

help with the new firm,

Chuck Lewis.

Chuck Lewis was a former used car salesman and former associate with Norm

Schmidt and other investment activities.

were probably questionable.

Lewis goes to work with Schmidt in a downtown Denver office, soliciting new

investors for capital holdings. This time, Schmidt claims to have a new

to trade from the Federal Reserve, giving him exclusive access to the world

prime banknotes, a market open to just a handful of the world's wealthy elite.

A familiar pitch.

And, as seen in this FBI video, Lewis sings his praises.

They got wired with people at the world level that have been in this, okay?

Yeah. Which are very, very few.

Very, very few.

Schmidt claims to pool investors' funds and then use the money to trade

multibillion -dollar bank bonds.

He says he then returns the profits at 10 % per month.

If you're working on 10 % a month, this is what you'd be working on.

10 % return a month.

And so then over the course of the year, I'm looking at 120%. That's what you're

telling me.

And investors, he says, are never in danger of losing their principal.

When you put it into the trust, or you put it into the brokerage firm now with

Wells Fargo, you get an insurance policy.

Now, if you want to insure it with credit risk, they'll insure your

Schmidt and Lewis promise massive returns and no risk.

The deal catches on, according to Chuck Lewis, in an exclusive telephone

interview with American Greed.

My family got involved, some of my friends got involved, and it was just a

reaction, maybe somewhat similar to a multi -level marketing program, you

And with the addition of Michael Smith, a big game hunter and insurance salesman

specializing in...

alternative investments, Lewis says the scam explodes.

It is ballooned. I imagine it went from maybe $50 ,000 to $100 ,000 a month to a

million dollars a week in just a few months.

Smith markets capital holdings to retirees like Carol Hendrickson.

She and her husband Clarence had run a lake retreat in Idaho.

The couple is looking to boost their income when a friend recommends the

investment.

My husband thought it would be a good way for him to put away so that if

anything happened to him, that I would be provided for in a comfortable way.

According to state securities investigator Chuck Reinhart, the

fairly typical of people who invest with Norm Schmidt, though the promised

returns may sound too good to be true.

It's the triumph of hope over experience.

When you get close to retirement, you're trying to pad that nest egg for the

final time. It may sound odd, but you really want to believe.

Boy, if I could just put this $25 ,000 in and turn it into a half a million

dollars in a year or something.

As Hendrickson remembers it, the home of Smith, the big game hunter, is like a

miniature version of the Redstone Castle.

Exotic animals.

antelope and animals that he told us he had shot on safari all over the world he

would say you're just taking a breath with all this information of wealth that

all came through this investment smith offers them seven percent a month and

assures them the deal is safe they decide to take the plunge taking out

thousand dollars from a mutual fund to invest with smith

We were told our money would be insured, and it would be insured through Lloyds

of Lending. We did get a letter along with this form showing Capital Holdings

was insured for $200 million.

For Norm Schmidt, Capital Holdings is paying off.

By the fall of 2002, he's breaking in more than $2 million a year.

Schmidt finances an entire NASCAR race team with the money and appoints his son

the driver.

The race team functions much like the Redstone Castle did in the earlier fund.

It was another, I guess I would call it a prop.

And investors were taken by that and thought that, well, he's doing very

I got my money in there and someday I'll be able to buy all these wonderful

things.

But the fast life is all a fraud.

In January 2001, Chuck Reinhardt at the Colorado Division of Securities gets a

complaint from three people in Fort Collins.

They claim they had each invested $25 ,000 with Schmidt and never got their

money back.

Reinhardt recognizes the scam immediately.

It was a classic.

Prime Bank note scheme.

All the language was there that's been used by perpetrators of this scheme for

25 years.

It's a genre of fraud that often preys on people's desire to believe in a

market available only to the ultra -rich.

This is for the elite of the world. Take the top 10 billionaires of the world,

and they would all tell you their stories of how they've made millions in

program. I'm here to tell you that it does not exist, period.

Reinhard and FBI Special Agent Stephanie Hahn begin an investigation.

In late 2002, they get their break.

Our break comes when I receive a call from a woman.

She's a little nervous. She doesn't want to identify herself.

The caller says she's the office manager for a Denver company that sells prime

banknote. As she describes the business, it sounds to Reinhard like the very

same scam he's been trailing for the past year and a half.

He takes a chance.

So I offered her a deal.

If I can tell you who you work for, will you tell me who you are?

She says, sure.

He says, Norman Schmidt and Chuck Lewis.

And I went to pieces, of course, because those are the two people that I worked

for. Sue Pike, the office manager who made the call, agrees to meet with

Reinhardt and Special Agent Hahn.

She tells them she becomes suspicious in part because Lewis and Schmidt may be

stealing investor deposits.

It would just go to Chuck, and Chuck would supposedly take it to Norman. I

no idea what they did with it.

Reinhardt and Hahn tell Veidt that her boss is siphoning millions from

unsuspecting retirees, and they persuade her to start working as an undercover

witness for the FBI.

I wanted to just never go back there again.

I really didn't want to go back to work.

But she knows what's at stake.

If I just walked away and I didn't go back, nobody would stop them.

They would just keep taking money.

Coming up, see how one woman works as a double agent to take down a $56 million

fraud for me inside.

I was very frightened. I couldn't sleep at night.

Denver, Colorado.

In 2002, Norman Schmidt and Chuck Lewis are living the mile -high high life.

Their investment firm, Capital Holdings, claims to use investors' money to trade

enormous bank bonds issued on an ultra -secret market.

Hundreds of investors have signed on, and the men are taking in an estimated

million a week.

Carol Hendrickson invests $50 ,000 in the fund.

When she receives her first monthly statement, It shows she has made almost

,000 in just 30 days.

She is so delighted she gets out special stationery and puts pen to paper.

I actually sat down and wrote him a personal letter and thanked him for

us join in on his company, and we were so happy with what was going on, and we

hope to be able to continue to do business with him.

Little does she know, her investment, along with hundreds more like it, is

straight into the pockets of Lewis and Schmidt.

Chuck lived as if he was wealthy. He spent a lot of time, spent a lot of cash

the Diamond Cabaret, which is a strip club.

Sue Veidt is leading a double life.

While working as the Capitol Holdings accountant, she secretly reports every

move they make to FBI Special Agent Stephanie Hahn.

I would take my cell phone, I would go downstairs and go out back in the alley

and hide behind a dumpster and call her.

Good thing she smoked because that was her excuse to go outside. And so she

said, I'm out at the dumpster and this is what they're doing today.

But Vike has to keep up the facade.

And doing the right thing is putting her in some difficult positions.

She recalls one agonizing conversation with a potential investor.

She must have asked me ten times, are you sure this is safe?

I couldn't say because we couldn't alert them to anything. So I would have to

say, you have to trust yourself.

What do you think? What do you think you should do? Do you think you should be

investing in this program?

And she gave me a couple different checks that were close to $100 ,000.

But before the FBI can shut down the operation, they need to catch Smith and

Lewis red -handed.

In February, at Agent Hahn's direction, Bike feeds Chuck Lewis information

regarding a developer out of Chicago who is interested in investing a whopping

$10 million with the firm.

He takes the bait.

Chuck just about jumped up and down.

He was pretty excited about that. He told me I would get a...

percentage of that if we managed to get him to invest, and they got right on it.

On February 19, 2003, Schmidt and Lewis fly to Chicago to meet the supposed

investor.

But when Schmidt enters the developer's conference room in his racing jacket, an

FBI camera is rolling.

Schmidt makes his pick.

So I wouldn't be buying the notes myself? No, all you do is put it into

trust, and we leverage your money and do it for you. And I make a lot of money

on it, because I get paid every day.

And so I'm using your money for 30 days.

But you're guaranteeing me 10 % of what?

It's exactly what investigators want to hear.

On March 7, 2003, FBI agents performed simultaneous search and seizures on the

Denver office and five other related locations.

They seized two million documents, free some 60 bank accounts.

and confiscate assets like Schmidt's prized race cars.

All told, the scheme has brought in more than 1 ,000 investors who have invested

some $56 million.

We had a victim in 48 of the 50 states and 13 countries.

In March 2004, Chuck Lewis, Michael Smith, Norman Schmidt...

and four other associates are arrested and charged with 57 counts of mail

wire fraud, and conspiracy.

Schmidt, Lewis, and Smith go to trial.

All are found guilty, and Schmidt receives a record 330 -year sentence.

The court took into consideration the vulnerability of the victims, and so the

court gave him the maximum sentence for each count under which he was convicted,

which resulted in the $300 ,000.

30 -year sentence.

Lewis gets 30 years in Leavenworth.

He tells American Greed from prison he never knew the investment was a scam.

I could have done a plea bargain for maybe just a few years, such as maybe

or two or three of the others did do.

But being innocent, I wanted to go to court and clear my name.

And in doing so, they gave me 30 years.

Lewis appeals his conviction and is denied.

Michael Smith gets five years for his role in the scheme.

Thanks to the FBI's ability to freeze bank accounts, most of the victims get

about half of their investment back.

FBI Special Agent Stephanie Hahn credits Sue Mike's work in helping them shut

down the fraud before Schmidt could cash out.

Without the help of Sue Veik and her cooperation with the FBI and the other

agencies involved, there would be no money for the victims. That money would

have all been gone.

For victims like Carol Hendrickson, it still hurts.

She's lost the money her husband wanted to put aside for her safety.

In 2008, he passes away.

When my husband passed away, his income stopped.

So this was going to help me, you know, live.

And obviously it didn't take place.

An agent once told me, never let greed overcome common sense.

And I think that's a lesson we all need to learn.

Next on American Greed, a Hawaiian con artist steals millions with no regrets.

I recall sitting there thinking, what, am I looking at Ted Bundy here?

This man has absolutely no compassion.

May 14, 2009.

Just off a barren stretch of highway in central Washington lay the twisted

remains of a white Ford Explorer 200 feet below the edge of a cliff.

The SUV was compacted into like this small vehicle that didn't even resemble

original SUV that went off the cliff.

There was mangled metal everywhere.

It was not a pretty picture.

Police pull the driver out of the car.

His ID says his name is James Lull, and he's got a round -trip ticket to Hawaii.

Investigators are puzzled. How does a man with a ticket to paradise end up at

the bottom of a desert ravine?

The year is 1990, and 41 -year -old James Lull has just arrived on the

island of Kauai to begin a new chapter in his life.

Lull lands a few jobs in the mortgage industry and eventually ends up as the

branch manager at U .S. Financial.

People like doing business with him because he was this affable guy.

He was this big teddy bear of a fellow, and people liked to be around him.

And while he collects friends easily, he also has a penchant for collecting

objects.

Opals, arrowheads, meteorites, and sports memorabilia.

His enthusiasm is contagious.

He always had something in his pocket that was interesting to look at.

Some of the time he would pull it out of his pocket and give it to you.

Claire Mortimer first meets James Lull in December 2000, and he pitches her an

investment opportunity.

He says many of his loan applicants have poor credit scores, too low to qualify

for mortgages.

Investors like Mortimer can lend his clients short -term bridge loans.

The applicants can then pay off debts.

If he saw somebody whose credit score wasn't quite high enough and it was

something as easy as paying off your credit card, those were the people who

would present to me. He would say, this is the situation.

Would you be interested in loaning X amount of dollars to this person? And it

would be paid back to you within six months.

Once the mortgage goes through, investors get their money back, plus a

return on their investment in just a few months.

Not bad at a time when Treasury bills pay only 6 % a year.

Lowell's bridge loan, if not reported on a mortgage application, is considered

mortgage fraud. But Lowell never explains that to his investors.

And having worked long hours as a nurse while raising two teenagers on her own,

Mortimer is pulled in by the lure of easy money.

I knew that there were just so many years that my kids would still be with

and I wanted those years to be in a safe place where I could spend more time

with them.

She invests several thousand dollars with Lowe, and in a few months gets all

money back plus 12%. This is sweet.

I just felt like, okay, this is...

On the up and up, and let's do it again.

Mortimer begins investing regularly with Lowe, as do scores of other investors

on Kauai.

We have something in Hawaii that we call the coconut wireless.

And that's really the rumor mill that spreads among the people here, because

everybody knows each other. And so one person talks to someone else at the

cookout or at the potluck, and the word spreads like wildfire.

And with a commission on every deal, Lull is reaping the benefits.

In 2004, he moves into a $4 million house on the beach and takes his

to the next level.

He buys more rare coins, including one $287 ,000 buffalo nickel

and acquires hundreds of pool cues.

But you won't find these at your local bar.

Opal.

hand -made pool cues, the most valuable one of which, I understand, was worth

about $50 ,000.

In 2003, Lull has so many applicants looking to boost their scores, he tells

Mortimer just to leave her money with him.

He said, keeping track of this and facilitating this back and forth and

it over is getting a little complicated.

I'm in this office every day, and every day people come in here who could

benefit from these loans.

Over the next two years, Mortimer takes out three mortgages on her own homes.

She invests more than $700 ,000 with Lowe.

And why not?

He's guaranteeing her 12 % a year.

For a short period of time, I was filthy rich.

But the good times don't last.

Coming up... James Lull goes from island hero to public enemy number one. And

angry investors want blood.

It was like pitchforks and torches. They wanted to string this guy up.

In 2006, James Lull is living an American dream in paradise.

He's made millions operating a lucrative side business out of his mortgage

company on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

Applicants come to him when they don't have a high enough credit score to

qualify for an affordable mortgage.

Michael Lilly, a former attorney general of Hawaii, says Lull gets money from

investors, then offers applicants a short -term bridge loan.

Lull gets them a $100 ,000, $200 ,000 bridge loan that's used to pay off

whatever debt they had.

The loan applicant boosts his credit score and gets the mortgage.

And the investor gets a whopping 12 % return.

The deals are wildly popular.

Over the course of six years, Lull brings in some 50 investors.

But around 2003, the investment scheme becomes a victim of its own success.

People would tell their aunties, their cousins, their moms, their dads to get

into this investment opportunity.

But James Lull actually, at some point, had more investors than he had actual

bridge loans to put their money within.

But Lull keeps taking their money, even with no place to put it.

To keep the scheme going, Lull encourages investors to roll their

payments over into new deals.

He then uses the funds to pay off old investors.

But there's one problem.

Lull must work frantically to bring in new investors, or the scheme will

collapse under its own weight.

He was financially under the water at the end of 2005, but nobody knew it.

In May 2006, Lull is getting desperate.

He approaches Donnie Maione, a general contractor in Kauai.

Lull offers Maione the opportunity to invest $75 ,000 in a bridge loan for a

client.

So he says, you know, I got a client that's looking for a bridge loan.

He offers Maione 2 .5 % interest for a two -week note.

That's equivalent to a return of 65 % a year.

I had heard of people in the community who had gone to him for these deals, and

it sounds like one of those too -good -to -be -true things, but when you see

happening over and over, I started to question, well, maybe it's a real deal.

He gives Lull the money, but two weeks go by and Lull doesn't pay.

For months, he holds Maione off with excuses, and Maione isn't alone.

Claire Mortimer has been investing with Lull for five years.

But in June, her monthly payments of $7 ,400 stopped coming.

I frantically got on the phone, trying to call him, trying to email him, trying

to get his attention and find out what the heck was wrong.

By December, Lowe is suffocating under the mountain of IOUs.

There are now more than 70 creditors demanding upwards of $55 million from

The only way out is for Lull to throw himself at the mercy of the bankruptcy

court.

Trustee Ronald Kodeshiroto is assigned to the case.

I've been doing bankruptcy trustee work for almost 30 years.

I've never come across a case like this where I've seen people so devastated by

a debtor.

Kodeshiroto calls a meeting of the creditors.

Gone is the jovial Lull investors have come to trust.

Instead... In a packed hearing room, one woman who invested her life savings

with Lull demands to know where her money went, and Lull shows no remorse.

Your money was long gone by then. I paid monthly stipends to people and other

small things.

Do you know that you've ruined my life?

Yes.

Cold. Just absolutely cold in his expression.

Attorney Bradley Tam attends the hearing.

I recall sitting there thinking, what, am I looking at Ted Bundy here?

This man has absolutely no compassion, and this is the one that everybody liked

because he was so friendly?

Seeking refuge from the ire of angry investors, Lowe flees to the mainland

settles near relatives in Bellevue, Washington.

He promises to help the trustee locate his assets and repay his victims.

But the U .S. trustee's office refers the case to the FBI, and agents begin

pounding the pavement to find out what happened.

We go out there and start knocking on doors and talking to the victims to find

out exactly what they were told to separate them from their money.

Now the FBI is on its trail, and Lull is forced to trade his $4 million mansion

in paradise for a rented room in a basement outside Seattle, Washington.

Peter Schaefer rents another room in the house.

He said that he'd had some bad luck in Hawaii.

He'd lost some money and decided he would move away from Hawaii, but he had

filed bankruptcy there.

Lull manages to find work at, of all places, a local mortgage company.

Then one day he offers his roommate a can't -miss opportunity for, you guessed

it, a bridge loan.

He told me that he was doing these loans to mortgage applicants.

Schaefer has some money put aside for his son's college education, and he

figures Lowe's offer could help strengthen the college fund.

Schaefer invests tens of thousands on several short -term loans with Lowe for

returns of up to 20 % per month.

He felt that he was your friend. He was doing you this favor. He was offering

you an opportunity to make some money.

But aside from a few reassuring payments to keep Schaefer happy, that money

never appears.

Instead, whenever Schaefer approaches Lull about getting it back, Lull shows

pocketfuls of opals, rare coins, and jewel -encrusted pool cues.

He would bring them and show you and say, see, I have this, and now I'm going

cash this in, and you will be the recipient of the rest of the money that

you. There's just one problem.

The jewels don't belong to him. They're assets he's hiding from the bankruptcy

court in Hawaii.

After several months of excuses, Schaefer does some research that might

saved him had he done it earlier.

I googled Jim Law Hawaii.

Well, up pops this article that Jim Law is a scam artist.

What's worse is Schaefer finds evidence that others are also being scammed in

Washington.

I made phone calls to other people that I knew that I thought might be involved

and found out that there were, I believe, six different people Jim was

definitely into for at least $300 ,000 to $400 ,000.

Back in Hawaii, the FBI has finished its investigation.

And on September 16, 2008...

Lull agrees to accept responsibility and plead guilty to one count of wire

fraud.

He is to be sentenced in April, and the government recommends 12 years in

prison.

But Shaper is following the trial and wants the judge to know what's going on

Washington. He flies to Honolulu to attend the sentencing hearing and takes

stand.

I looked at the judge and I said, you know, your honor, I don't know the

agreement that Mr. Lowell has with the court, but I can tell you that he is

perpetrating the exact same crime on a smaller scale in Washington.

And the judge's mouth just kind of fell open.

The court is shocked. The judge suspects Lowell hasn't really accepted

responsibility and that he is hiding valuable assets.

She delays the hearing one month to consider a longer prison term for Lowe.

On May 15, 2009, the court gathers once again to sentence James Lowe.

But this time, there's someone missing.

We're sitting there, and the U .S. attorney comes in with the FBI.

The public defender comes in, who's supposed to have Mr.

Lowe with him.

And we're waiting.

and there's a lot of talking and back and forth, and then the judge comes out.

Where's Mr. Lull?

The judge was furious.

James Lull didn't show up to his own sentencing, so she issued a bench

for his arrest.

And because I was the case agent, it was going to be up to me to try and capture

James Lull.

But Special Agent Simon doesn't have to wait long.

Later that day, he gets a call.

It was a military police officer in Yakima, Washington, who told me that

that day, someone had driven off a cliff and fallen 200 feet to their death in

an SUV.

When police removed the body, they found court documents, a round -trip plane

ticket for Honolulu, and a driver's license that read James Lowe.

Fingerprints confirm it's him.

Tire marks indicate the vehicle was accelerating as it left the highway and

traveled almost 100 yards to the 200 -foot cliff.

The death is ruled a suicide.

James Lull, dead at 60 years old.

He takes his alleged crimes to the grave, having never been sentenced, and

leaves dozens of investors with their life savings completely wiped out.

Claire Mortimer bet it all on James Lull.

She took out three mortgages on her homes and lost it, more than $800 ,000.

She sells her home in Kauai at a loss and moves in near relatives on the coast

of Maine, 5 ,000 miles from the gentle breezes of Kauai.

It can happen to anybody.

It happened to me.

I'm an educated person.

I think of myself as being pretty savvy, but I got ripped off big time.

Big time.

Donnie Maione lost $75 ,000 to Lowe and is saddled with a high -interest

mortgage on the dream home he built for his family.

For two years, his family isn't sure whether they will be able to stay.

To watch my wife and see the pain that she was in was equally devastating

because here I'm supposed to be the provider, you know, I'm supposed to be

man of the family, thinking that I'm going to be able to, you know, give

something to my family here, and I fell short of that.

Peter Schaefer loses his son's college fund to Lowe. It was about $30 ,000 that

could have gone to this education that I certainly would have been happy to

have.

Leaving a path of destruction stretching far beyond the small island of Kauai,

Lowe will be remembered as always wanting one thing.

His goal for the day, and literally day,

would be to scam somebody for something.

It's what made him tick was getting something from somebody for nothing.