SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Aug. 31, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — Five Utahns are among the defendants indicted for wire fraud that allegedly bilked investors, mostly the elderly, of $30 million.
Seven defendants, including a New Hampshire company, were indicted by a federal grand jury this week on 18 counts each of wire fraud in machinations for the former Utah-based reception center, Noah’s Event Venue.
According to court documents, from January 2015 through May 2019, defendants “conspired together to engage in a nationwide scheme to defraud investors,” according to a press release from U.S. Attorney for Utah Trina A. Higgins.
“The victims, who were mostly retired and elderly individuals, were defrauded of more than $30 million after being induced by the defendants to invest in Noah’s Event Centers.” The company filed for bankruptcy in May 2019, according to news reports, for its 42 locations nationwide.
Defendants are William J. Bowser, 60, of Hendersonville, North Carolina, who founded the company in Utah in 2003; Christopher J. Ashby, 49, of Salt Lake County, Utah; Scott W. Beynon, 46, of Davis County, Utah; Jordan S. Nelson, 42, of Salt Lake County, Utah; Scott L. Rutherford, 51, of Utah County, Utah; and John D. Hamrick, 64, of Franconia, New Hampshire, and the Vice President and Director of Edmund and Wheeler Inc., which is also named as a defendant in the indictment.
As alleged in the indictment, Noah’s Event Venues were, collectively, an unprofitable enterprise sustained only through infusions of new investor funds.
The defendants did not use investor funds as promised in their marketing materials, purchase agreements and related representations. “Instead, they misappropriated and diverted investor funds meant for the development and construction of new event centers to pay large commissions, Noah’s operations, prior investors, construction costs of other event centers, and rents on previously sold Noah Event Centers.
“As part of their alleged scheme, the defendants used the internet, telephone, email, and other means to promote, offer and sell fractional Tenant-in-Common interests in five Noah Event Centers through the use of a network of financial planners, 1031 exchange specialists, real estate brokers and other salespeople, using glossy marketing materials showing pictures of beautifully constructed buildings and promising impressive long-term financial returns.”
Bowser and his co-conspirators are charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The defendants are scheduled for their initial court appearance on Sept. 14, 2023, at 4 p.m. in Courtroom 8.4 before a U.S. Magistrate Judge at the Orrin G. Hatch United States District Courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City.
The case is being investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), and prosecuted by Higgins’ assistant U.S. attorneys Cy H. Castle, Stewart M. Young, Stephen P. Dent and Peter Kuhn.
Noah’s Event Venue has earned its own Wikipedia page, which basically ends with the 2019 bankruptcy and 2020 problems with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
