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In this episode of American Greed, Sandy Jenkins and his wife Kay are living big
in Texas.
The running joke was that Sandy got a new car every time he needed an oil
change. I remember asking, did he win the lottery?
Because most people just didn't spend like that.
But how can an accountant at a bakery making $50 ,000 a year pay for such
extravagance? It's easy when you're spending somebody else's dough.
It made me sick of my stomach.
How can you look at people in the eye and betray trust like that?
Then, a self -proclaimed financial whiz, Gregory Lowes lives his life in the
fast lane, spending millions on a professional race team.
In many respects, people looked at him as the American success story.
He shares his investment ideas with his friends and even his church.
He indicated that he had a way to create safe, reliable investments, getting an
average return of between 6 % and 8%. But what's really fueling his successful
lifestyle are fast -paced lies.
We all assumed he was rich. We didn't know he was a thief.
In the center of downtown Austin, Texas, sits Lady Bird Lake, a quiet oasis
where visitors come for fun and relaxation.
But in July of 2013, the lake hides a secret.
An off -duty University of Texas police officer had been taking a walk along
Lady Bird Lake and noticed something in the water right along the trail.
It's a watch, a gold Rolex that sells for more than $5 ,000.
That's strange.
But even more strange, he spots another watch, and then another.
He ended up recovering, I believe, 16 of those watches just in this little area
along the trail, and a gold coin and a gold bar.
Someone has tossed close to $500 ,000 in valuables into the lake.
But why would somebody do that?
Believe it or not, the answer begins with fruitcakes.
Welcome
to
Corsicana, Texas, an hour south of Dallas and 50 years away.
Corsicana's a small town.
It has been about the same size for as long as I've ever remembered.
Known as the birthplace of the Texas oil industry, the town should be famous for
the black gold found here more than 100 years ago.
But move over, big oil.
That's not what put Corsicana on the world map.
That honor belongs to these little gems.
Yes, that's a fruitcake.
Collins Street Bakery has been a family -owned and operated business in town for
more than 100 years.
The McNutt family bought the business from a German immigrant baker in 1946.
And over time, and with the recipe of hard work and careful expansion, they've
achieved fruitcake greatness.
Selling more than one million deluxe fruitcakes a year, Collins Street Bakery
has become a household name.
Their iconic tin can can even be seen in the movie The Godfather.
And while the dense cake has the reputation of being just a bad joke to
the bakery and to Corsicana, it's a source of pride.
If you travel and you're from Corsicana and you mention virtually anyone
anywhere from Corsicana, they'll say, oh, that's the place where the fruitcake
comes from.
It's a big business, but at its core, Collin Street Bakery is still a small,
family -run company.
Bob McNutt is president and CEO.
He took over the business from his father, who also took it over from his
father. We have a great history of longevity.
I can't tell you how many husband and wives have worked here together, and
really a family atmosphere.
In 1998, the bakery adds a new member to its family, a young bookkeeper by the
name of Sandy Jenkins.
Sandy grows up the son of a grocer in a small town not far from Corsicana.
He earns a degree in business administration and reportedly gets a job
local utility company as an accounting clerk.
He and his wife Kay move to Corsicana and become active members at the local
Baptist church, where Sandy becomes a deacon and Kay helps out in the kitchen.
When Sandy's job is eliminated, A fellow church member steps in.
They were praying for Sandy to get a job.
So my CFO brought him in and said, hey, you know, what do you think about him
for this position?
The pay isn't much, only about $25 ,000 a year.
And with his shy personality, Sandy has a hard time fitting in at the bakery.
I liked him. He was very dry -witted.
but very quiet, very under the radar.
You know, you walk in a room and you wouldn't necessarily notice Sandy.
And that bothers Sandy.
He's always felt invisible and always wanted to be more.
He's longed for the finer things in life, even as a child.
Allegedly, at just 12 years old, he starts a modest watch collection, buying
them used from relatives and friends.
He enjoys nice clothes when he can.
and is even voted most fashionable in high school.
But years later, he still resents not being able to lead a full life of
He works hard and manages to move up at the bakery.
Within a couple of years, he was promoted to controller and was making
,000 per year.
But he still can't afford things like a new car or a bigger watch collection.
He just saw other people doing well, so he wanted more money to spend on
himself and Kay.
I can recall, you know, having a conversation with him, and he just felt
bitterness toward Bob because he always said that he was born with a silver
spoon in his mouth and he wanted what he had.
Collins Street Bakery is making big money.
and even has plans to expand their business.
In 2004, we decided to put in some stores, particularly on the highways.
In 2005, the bakery makes an astounding $35 million in sales, all while
Sandy still can't afford that new car.
That's when Sandy Jenkins decides he deserves a bigger piece of the pie and
starts helping himself.
It started small.
He initially was taking money from petty cash, and he got away with it for a
while. When that goes unnoticed, he moves on to a bigger scheme.
Sandy's job was to handle the money coming in and deposit, and then write
checks for what we owed and send them out. The way that the bakery had their
bill payment set up was just use an electronic check with the bakery's
president's signature, and Sandy was able to print those checks himself.
But what if Sandy wrote those checks for things he wants?
He starts racking up charges on his credit card to the tune of $20 ,000 and
plans to have the bakery pay the bill.
Instead of writing a check to a standard bakery vendor, Jenkins writes a check
for $20 ,000 to his personal credit card company.
He makes sure Bob McNutt's electronic signature is in place, presses print,
mails it out.
To hide his fraud, he marks that check as voided in the account system.
It wouldn't show up anywhere but a report of voided checks.
And nobody was looking at voided checks. And Sandy knew that based upon his
inside knowledge of how the bakery was operating.
But he still has to cover the amount of money being deducted from the bakery's
account.
That's easy.
He just creates another check for $20 ,000 to a legitimate bakery vendor.
and makes sure the check number is one off than the one he sent to his personal
credit card.
He enters the new check into the system, but never mails it out.
It's an almost foolproof plan.
And since Jenkins is also in charge of balancing the books, it's the perfect
recipe for fraud.
With this system in place, Sandy and his wife Kay are finally able to afford the
things they've always wanted.
They lived like they were on one of those millionaire shows.
Overnight went from driving the GMC Astro van to a brand new Lexus, and then
another Lexus, and another one, and another one, and a Rolls Royce, and a
Bentley, and a Mercedes.
It just went on and on.
That first fraudulent check for $20 ,000 soon turned into hundreds of checks,
totaling almost $2 million a year.
They buy a vacation home in New Mexico worth more than...
$650 ,000.
Kay buys Louis Vuitton handbags and mink furs.
They start taking vacations and flying private jets to places like Napa, Aspen,
and Santa Fe. They frequently go on lavish shopping sprees, averaging more
$98 ,000 a month on their Amex.
The personal shopper at Neiman Marcus had nicknames for Sandy and Kay Jenkins
because they were there so often. Sandy was Fruitcake and Kay was Cupcake.
Fruitcake is finally able to expand his watch collection into one that is worth
millions.
In 2006 alone, Cupcake buys five Rolex watches totaling more than $50 ,000,
the same amount as Sandy's annual salary.
And when the bill comes due, Sandy Jenkins just prints out another check to
cover the costs.
Meanwhile, Bob McNutt tries to figure out where the bakery profits are going.
It looked as though our advertising was not as successful as it was because our
expenses were reported to be higher than in fact they were.
We were building our store, so we thought, well, maybe that has something
with it, with the expenses for these new stores.
We couldn't figure it out.
It seems like Sandy's dirty little secret is safe.
Next on American Greed, Sandy is asked to explain a problem with the books.
There was a ghostly look that came upon him.
I had a feeling that something was wrong.
Sandy Jenkins continues to play the part of a loyal, trustworthy, hard -working
employee at Collins Street Bakery.
But in reality, he's anything but.
He's been creatively stealing almost $2 million a year while he and his wife Kay
live the sweet life.
But in the small town of Corsicana, their new luxurious lifestyle starts to
raise a few eyebrows.
He did things people of small means could not do. And it was obvious
you saw Kay, the jewelry she had on, she wore it frequently and a lot of it.
People start to ask questions.
I can remember asking one of the employees, you know, did he win the
Because most people just didn't spin like that.
And Sandy Jenkins has answers.
Well, he says, yeah, I inherited money.
And my wife, you may have heard, inherited money as well.
I noticed one day that he had this beautiful car. I said, Sandy, how did
this? And he said, I'm a car trader. It's just what I do, and I'm good at
it. Unlike Sandy, Kay is self -conscious about what others might think.
It got so extreme that Kay Jenkins felt uncomfortable with some of the vehicles
that he was buying.
Because she knew that within the small town, of course, of Tanna, people are
going to start asking more and more questions when you're driving a Rolls
down the street.
To blend in better, when Kay purchases a new car, she buys the same car in the
same color, just a newer model every time.
Kay always liked a powder blue Lexus.
And there was one instance where Sandy went and got her a slightly different
color blue Lexus. And when he brought it home, she said, no, no, I want the
powder blue so that nobody knows I got another new one.
Sandy's been careful to cover his tracks and make sure if any questions arise,
there are explanations in place.
Symmetric Walker joined the Collins Street Bakery as an accounting assistant
2011.
When I was trained,
I was told that there was a glitch in the system.
And so sometimes you would have checks that would be off a digit.
It really never caught my attention.
That is, until one day in June of 2013.
Normally I would see a discrepancy in the check number.
This time there was a discrepancy in the amount.
The check was for $10 ,000, but the system was reflecting a check of $20
The account says the check was sent to a postmaster Corsicana.
But when Walker pulls a photocopy of the check, she notices something even more
strange.
The check is made out to Capital One Bank.
I knew from working here that we didn't have an account at Capital One.
We didn't have any credit cards at Capital One.
And so I was trying to figure out how it had gotten on there. I was like, oh,
no, we have fraud, you know, on our account.
And so I took it to Sandy.
This is the moment Sandy Jenkins never wanted to face.
I showed him what I found.
And there was a ghostly look that came up on him. And just based on that look,
had a feeling that something was wrong.
Jenkins quickly comes up with a story.
He said he paid a post office bill with a credit card because he didn't think
one of their checks would go through.
It didn't make sense because we've never had a problem with presenting our
checks to the post office.
And so I started doing some investigation of my own.
I pulled up our bank account online and started looking at random checks,
and then I started noticing a pattern.
She goes through the voided check register report and finds 16 other
totaling at least $250 ,000 that were made payable to Jenkins' personal
accounts, including American Express, Neiman Marcus, and Bank of America.
Suddenly, all of those private jets and luxury cars Jenkins drove start to make
sense. When I learned about the theft, it really made me sick in my stomach.
How can you look at people in the eye and betray trust like that?
I remember he attended my father's funeral.
How much money did he steal that week?
Jenkins is fired and is escorted out of the building.
Next on American Greed, Jenkins knows his days of rolling in dough are over.
before he sinks, he has one last move of desperation.
He started throwing some of the most valuable items from the jewelry safe
Lady Bird Lake within arm's length of the shore.
Employees at the Collins Street Bakery have just learned that one of their own,
Sandy Jenkins, has been embezzling from them for the last eight years.
We saw the opulence. They grew and grew and grew.
Just didn't connect it with Sandy.
It is a family business. And if you can't trust your family, you can't trust
anyone. We're a 120 -year -old bakery, and we've been doing it the same way
after year, and never a problem.
After being fired from the bakery, Sandy Jenkins knows it's only a matter of
time before he is arrested.
Sandy's terminated in June of 2013, and he immediately goes home and starts
talking to his wife about what's happened.
They decide to pack a bag and get out of town, but it isn't just clothes they
are packing.
Sandy and Kay gather up a shopping bag of luxury items. Some of their...
Prize possessions, the watches that they really liked the most.
Sandy described it at one point as his retirement fund and took it to Austin.
Weeks later, on July 24, 2013, the FBI executes a search warrant on the Jenkins
home.
In Kay Jenkins' closet, we found a ledger where she had been keeping an
list of some of the things that they purchased.
For example, there's a list of rings.
Three -carat platinum ring, $25 ,000.
Five -carat, $64 ,000.
Seven -carat oval, $125 ,000.
And there were boxes of shoes that had never been worn, handbags that had never
been used, multiple pieces of luggage in the same size that did not appear to
have been used.
Sandy Jenkins is alerted to the FBI activity at his house.
One of his neighbors calls and says, hey, you know, your house is being
searched. What's going on?
And at that point, we determined that Sandy Jenkins picks up that bag and
off with it.
He drives to Lady Bird Lake and heads down to the water.
One by one, Jenkins removes the items from the bag and tosses them into the
lake.
Watch after watch and Rolex after Rolex sink to the bottom of the cold, dark
water.
Is he trying to hide evidence?
Or does he plan to come back for his prized possessions once things die down?
We may never know.
A couple of days later.
An off -duty University of Texas police officer was out by Lady Bird Lake and
found some of these items in the water.
A dive team is enlisted and soon recovers approximately $500 ,000 worth
valuables from the muck, including about 40 watches.
The serial numbers found on the items lead police back to the Jenkins, and
is arrested.
In all, he steals more than $16 .5 million from Collins Street Bakery and
over 888 fraudulent checks to his personal accounts.
He is indicted and pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering,
fraud, and making a false statement to a financial institution.
He is sentenced to 10 years in prison and is ordered to pay more than $12
million in restitution.
Kay Jenkins pleads guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering
and is sentenced to five years of probation.
She is also required to send a letter of apology to the bakery.
Sandy Jenkins was not only stealing from the stockholders, but everybody who
worked at a desk or a mixing bowl or at the oven or on the truck.
He was taking away from people's livelihood.
feeling the weight of the responsibility for having let down so many people
myself. You know, I thought about, should I step aside?
And I just thought about it, prayed about it, and I just said, look, there's
nobody that knows this business any better, and there's nobody that can
this business any better.
You just got to make sure you got the right people, and you got to move
In the end, Sandy Jenkins may have lived the life he dreamed of for a short
time.
But the lesson he learns is you can't always have your cake and eat it too.
Next on American Greed, a successful race team owner may not be what he
We all assumed he was rich.
We didn't know he was a thief.
This is the start of North America's premier endurance auto race, the Rolex
Hours of Daytona. It's a 24 -hour sprint race.
They go all out. The engines are running at 8 ,000 RPMs for 24 hours.
It's an exciting race.
Racing at over 100 miles an hour, drivers fight for the lead.
Your heart's beating in your ears.
Your forehead, your temples, you feel it in your chest. The adrenaline will just
completely take you over.
After 24 grueling hours at the wheel, the team called Farnbacher Lowell's
home a win.
It's a big victory for one of the owners, Greg Lowell's, a self
financial whiz who's relatively new to the professional racing world.
Lowell. is a proud first -generation Greek -American who started out as a
stockbroker. Craig was very charismatic.
He came from the stock market background, and he knew how to wine and
know, he had the right lingo and the attitude.
He moves to Connecticut in the 90s after landing a job at A .G. Edwards.
He does well and wants to connect with other local Greek residents, so he joins
St. Barbara's Greek Orthodox Church.
People reached out in our church to someone new, and quickly we reached out,
he got very involved in the community very quickly.
People are attracted to his charming personality, and soon Lowes forms close
bonds with some of the parishioners.
There was one couple, Nelson Nicholson and his wife Carol, who they themselves
didn't have any children, and they welcomed Greg Lowes into their family,
treated him, and considered him to be their own son.
Greg Lowles actually had his children refer to Mr. Nicholson as grandfather.
Lowles manages to leave his job at A .G. Edwards and starts his own company,
Aperon Capital Management.
In many respects, people looked at him as the American success story.
He always had nice cars. He was dressed nicely.
He was what many of the Greek immigrants aspired to be for themselves or their
children.
The church takes notice of his financial acumen and asks Lowell to join a
special financial board.
As a member of the endowment fund, Greg had oversight responsibility for a
number of different financial aspects of the church itself, from church picnics
to educational courses, the theological mission, and maintaining the grounds of
the church. The church looks to Lowell's for guidance on how to invest their
money safely.
Through his company, he offers to invest in bonds that will protect their
principal but also offer high returns.
Greg indicated that there was a bond fund called Nightbridge Holdings that he
was able to get access to, but the only way he could do that was if there was
sufficient funds. And so the concept was that he would pull money from the
church and from some private investors and be able to get some participation in
this bond fund that was going to bring in a high rate of return, somewhere
7 .5 % to 8 % when traditional investments were earning a fraction of
The church agrees and gives Lowes almost $2 million to invest.
Soon, Lowes comes back with good news.
Well, the endowment fund would meet monthly, and Greg would give monthly
statements that would show very good returns.
Through Greg's efforts, we were doing very well.
Yes, it appears Greg Lowes is a godsend, and personally, he's doing better than
ever.
He's even able to fund an expensive new hobby, luxury auto racing.
Greg had a 2002 Porsche Twin Turbo, and he came to me for service, and he didn't
even know that there was such a thing called club racing and that you can
your car on the track.
He was very excited about it. He starts as an amateur, doing Porsche club racing
at local tracks, but is soon introduced to Horst Farnbacher.
a professional race team owner.
For years, the horse team has won races in Europe. But the cost of owning such a
team can be astronomical.
A full season of racing in a single car requires somewhere between $800 ,000 to
$1 million to pay for the crew, to pay for the car.
So that's not peanuts.
The team decides to try its luck in America.
But they need an additional investor.
Greg Lowell told us that he had a lot of money.
that he wanted to take an active part in working with us.
He invests, and the team become Farnbacher Lowell.
Farnbacher Lowell ran very well.
Every race we were competitive, and we won many races.
Lowell's doesn't stop there.
Under his new Farnbacher Lowell's entity, he also decides to build a new
business, an amateur race car servicing center.
in Danbury, Connecticut.
He took members of the community there to see it for the grand opening.
The facility was top of the line.
It was impressive.
I looked up and I said, this place will never make money.
Spencer Cox has been operating his own servicing business for years, but agrees
to come work for Lowell's at his new facility.
It was beautiful, but it was the Taj Mahal.
The rent was insane. We had porters and helpers and office staff.
This industry doesn't generate this kind of money. Where's the money coming
from?
He said he was a hedge fund guy. We figured he just had deep pockets.
He does.
They're just not his.
Next on American Greed, Lowell revs up investors and pushes his spending into
high gear.
Hear more about Gregory Lowell's spending at AmericanGreed .CNBC .com.
Want inside information from the show?
Join the Greed social network.
Like us on American Greed's Facebook page.
We'll be right back.
Gregory Lowes is living life in the winner's circle, both on and off the
He loved being around the top drivers of the world and the fact that he could
talk to the president of Porsche Motorsport.
All of those things fed his ego.
He's also been busy working his financial magic for St. Barbara's Greek
Church.
He appears to be successfully investing money from their endowment fund in bonds
that have been getting steady returns of about 8%. When the church needed funds,
Greg would come up with them. For example, annually when it was time to
scholarships to our youth, Greg would produce a check for the amount of the
scholarships, $40 ,000 or $50 ,000.
Fellow parishioners have heard the good word about his prosperity and now want
him to invest their money as well.
After all...
If the church trusts him, why shouldn't they?
Over a period of time, individuals would approach Greg saying, gee, I understand
you're doing well for others or for the church. Can you find a way to get me
involved?
A lot of the elderly people didn't want to invest in the stock market or another
internet bubble.
So there was a sense that he was kind of letting them in on something that paid
a good return.
Lowell's obliges, and individual members entrust their life savings,
retirements, and 401ks with him.
Millions of dollars are handed over to Lowell's to invest safely.
We're talking, you know, six, seven, eight hundred thousand dollars of a nest
egg that they thought not only would support them, but they would be able to
pass it on to their children and their grandchildren.
Mr. Nelson Nicholson, who had... Treated Lowell like a son. Gave him literally
millions of dollars to control and purportedly invest.
And Greg has given them no reason to worry.
They could see their investments growing on each monthly statement.
Gregory Lowell seems heaven sent, a financial guru, a professional race team
owner, and a friend to all.
They really came to trust him as somebody who was part of their church,
part of their community.
I think their defenses were down and he really was a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Despite his official -looking statements, it's all lies.
He hasn't been investing in safe -growing bonds.
He's been putting those millions into his own personal bank account.
What Mr. Lowell essentially did was he established multiple bank accounts. I
think there were about eight to ten different bank accounts. And he would
provide a name for each individual account.
And each name would be the name of one of the bonds.
So he set up at Citibank Knightsbridge Capital, which was just a checking
account. When he told people he was investing their money in Knightsbridge
bonds, when he sent money from that account, it would actually show up on
statement from Knightsbridge.
If investors request money or an interest payout, Lowell simply finds
investors and shuffles around their cash to make his payments.
What should be a diverse portfolio of safe investments is really just one big
checkbook. Money just was transferred back and forth, back and forth, to suit
the needs of whatever Mr. Lowell was seeking to do at that particular time.
And what is Mr.
Lowell seeking to do?
He moved into a bigger house, expanded the house.
He expanded the garage to have a five -car garage. He filled in landfill to
in tennis courts. He had a pool, and he traveled around the world. Trips to
Milan, Italy, trips to Europe. He stayed in nice hotels.
And it appears Lowell's has been using a significant amount of money for one
other expensive passion,
Farnbacher Lowell's Racing.
It may be a winning team, but it's a money pit.
It cost about $120 ,000, just the operational cost of that race, excluding
cost of the car.
I think the payout at that time was $24 ,000 if you win.
Not very much.
From winning races at those funds, you could never fund a team.
Even the Grand Amateur Car Servicing Center is funded by lies and stolen
retirement funds.
These race car guys, they get addicted and they just start throwing millions of
millions of dollars. So I've seen this all my life.
You know, they talk about drug users selling jewelry.
I can tell you a hundred stories about people selling, you know, kitchen
appliances to pay for a set of tires.
For years, Lowell's is able to shuffle money around and gain enough new
investors that no one catches on to his scheme.
But after a while, Lowell's church investors alone aren't enough to keep
racing addiction afloat.
He then turns his eyes to the track and starts using his connections there to
get new investors.
They met him on the side of the racetrack, and he told them that he had
at Goldman Sachs that he could just pick up the phone and call at any time,
seeing what appeared to be a very profitable, very successful racing car
business. led those investors to believe that, you know, he was very successful
at managing money as well.
He was a great salesman when it came to his financial acumen.
Greg kept talking about Perrin and all of these people getting 8 % interest. 8
is a lot.
Then, okay, fine, let's try this.
Goebbels invests $600 ,000 with Lowell, and just like the church parishioners,
He also receives official monthly statements.
1099 statements and monthly statements from apparent capital management showing
how much money was being made. It was very believable.
Lowell's might be able to fool people for a little while longer, but when the
stock market stalls, he fails to find new investors, and bills start piling
Next on American Greed, Lowell's begins losing control and starts slamming on
the brakes.
Vendors would call us and say, I can't ship, I haven't been paid. We actually
got thrown out of our hotel rooms and all of our stuff put on the hallway
because the credit card was denied.
Gregory Lowles has been busy living life in the fast lane, promoting himself as
a successful investment broker and professional race team owner.
But when Lowles can't come up with the funds to pay the bills for his pro race
team and his car servicing center, people start asking questions.
There was always a delay in people receiving their funds on time. It was
probably March, April 2009 when it really started to get bad.
People were hounding me for their money.
I continued to defend Greg based on my discussions with him.
Oh, don't worry, you know, liquidity is just a short -term issue.
Peter Goebel not only manages the Farnbacher Lowell's pro team, but has
invested $600 ,000 personally with Lowell's investment company, Aperon
Management.
Word spreads in the race community that Lowell's company might not be what it
seems. And Goebel becomes alarmed.
I, in fact, did ask him specifically, I said, Greg, is there any relationship
between apparent capital management and its monies and Farnbacher Lowell's?
His answer came very quickly and direct.
No, there is absolutely no relationship. Don't worry about it. Your money is
safe and apparent.
But that's a lie.
Other investors start asking similar questions.
People started to notice something was wrong.
He was not able to keep up with the monthly interest payments, and he was
kind of falling behind.
And then Gregory Lowell's house of cars comes crashing down.
In early December of 2009, the church received a phone call from a gentleman
from California asking why...
His loan wasn't being repaid.
And the church office said, what loan are you referring to? And he indicated
that Greg Lowles had borrowed money from him claiming he was on behalf of the
church.
That was the start of this horrific discovery.
Our FBI office in Bridgeport and in New Haven started to get phone calls from
victim investors.
And eventually the investigation became exposed for what it was.
He never made any investments. He simply stole that money for himself, for his
own personal use.
By now, Lowell knows he's caught.
And with the weight of his massive fraud looming over him, he reportedly tries
to end his life.
He was in his multi -car garage with one of his fancy high -performance vehicles
running. He was sitting behind the car.
And his son found him there and, you know, called the paramedics.
I think it was a feeble attempt to try to shirk the responsibility.
You know, I'm messed up, I'm deranged, I'm sick, I'm demented. Whatever term or
medical phrase you want to use to try to make it seem like it wasn't his fault.
While at the hospital, Lowles makes his confession to law enforcement and is
later arrested.
He is indicted on 32 counts of securities fraud, wire fraud, mail
money laundering.
The racing community is stunned.
Well, I was angry, of course.
Probably angry not so much at him as I was at myself for my stupidity. I felt
badly for Varnbacher.
Horst Varnbacher and I worked very hard to establish a prominent name in racing
in the United States.
I felt badly for that because it got dragged into the mud.
The service center is shut down, and Spencer Cox loses his job.
When we closed, I basically had to start my life over, and now it's been six and
a half years for me to rebuild what I've had previously before I met that man.
The Greek community and St. Barbara's Church are devastated.
The church itself invested $2 .1 million from its endowment fund, meant for
scholarships and church repairs.
The dream was to build a gymnasium where our kids could congregate, and here it
is seven years later.
That money's gone.
The only thing that's there is the weeds coming out of the foundation.
The impact to the individual parishioners was remarkable.
People lost their life savings, their retirement.
Victims write letters to the court telling their own stories of betrayal.
Greg Lowe's has caused so many problems for my family.
We have been under so much stress and our days are mostly filled with pain and
sadness instead of happiness. And I, along with my husband, have worked and
sacrificed my whole life. I also gave him my deceased husband's life insurance
policy and even took a second mortgage loan on my current residence. It's a
shame because before passing away, my husband told me to trust and consult
Lowles regarding our finances.
He has taken everything from me.
Overall, he steals almost $27 million from more than 250 victims.
He gives a tearful apology, but the judge doesn't buy it. Telling Lowles he
quote, the most sinister defendant I have ever sentenced for this category of
crimes.
He is sentenced to 25 years in prison and given a $27 million bill to repay.
The impact of Gregory Lowles' greed -fueled wreck.
will be felt by generations to come.
There was a soullessness to it, the way that he abused these people.
He lied to their face. He continued to interact with them, even though he had
stolen their money, in order for him to be in a position that maybe he felt that
he deserved in life.
But he certainly didn't.
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