$18M Ponzi scheme twins targeted retirees, insurance clients
BAY CITY -- In late 2008, as the country slid into recession, Elmer and Caroline Ayres sat down at the kitchen table in their home near Bay City to discuss a new investment.
Their financial adviser, Thomas Mulholland, promised the couple a 7% rate of return if they invested their retirement savings with him. He told them their money would go toward real estate, according to court records. He emphasized the investment was safe.
Over the next year, the couple liquidated their retirement accounts and invested more than $95,000 in the East Lansing-based company.
There was so much they didn't know.
The Ayreses didnt know that Thomas and his brother, James, lacked the credentials their business cards touted. James Mulholland did not have a license to sell insurance in Michigan, because the state revoked it in 2006. And Mulholland Financial Services the very company which the Ayreses were being asked to invest in had been dissolved two years earlier.
Read more: http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2016/08/19/ponzi-scheme-twins-targeted-retirees-insurance-clients/88964910/