S O U N D   O F F

December 12, 2007

A front page article in Rocky Mountain News, and in one-inch headlines tells about the State of Colorado Auditors demanding $15 Million back from fraudulent conservation easement schemes.    For now, they are just focusing on the poor duped appraisers, who thought they were doing God's work in saving the Earth from evil landowners.  They will soon turn on their 'friends' when they realize just how badly this whole thing was represented to them (these folks don't really have 'friends'; they have 'useful relationships').  They thought that the I.R.S., the State of Colorado, the Green Religion, and our worn-out hippies in Delta County were all on their side.  Now the appraisers are a convenient scapegoat and are called 'a few bad apples'.  They are no such thing.  

They did just exactly what the C.E. salesmen and attorneys told them to do at every C.E. meeting I ever attended.  I remember their attorney at the meeting in Westcliffe bragging about how the land had sold for far more than the 'after C.E.' appraisal very soon after the C.E. had been completed.  In fact, it sold for more than the 'before' value, which showed a very deliberate fraud.  This was about five years ago.  All the lightweights at that meeting thought I was way out of line when I told them that they did not understand anything about the tax implications of the C.E.  I hope they are a little bit worried about it now.

After all, why would the State be so willing to hand over $375,000.00 to each wealthy outsider, if this was not highly approved and protected.  It would have remained that way, but the Denver tax attorney, Rodney Atherton, (and others like him) got too cute and too greedy and overdid the scheme. 

I learned long ago that "pigs get fed, but hogs get slaughtered".  Now all the parties will be turning on each other like mob members do.  There is plenty of blame to go around, and we haven't even got to the real fraud, which is the whole conservation easement scheme.  For now, we can just enjoy watching the 'small fry' get theirs.  We might and might not, ever get to see the real promoters of the fraud get into trouble.  That would be the leaders of the Land Trust movement itself, including their sales people and their attorneys.

This is why I have always said that when the sales people say, "Only enter a C.E. after receiving competent legal advice" that is an oxymoron.  A competent and honest attorney would tell you not to do it.

Lewis A.