www.sanluisobispo.com/183/story/681452.html -
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Published on: 4/12/2009
Last Visited: 4/13/2009
In February, Mike Wilson - a Santa Maria mortgage business owner with many San Luis Obispo County clients and real estate investments - was washed overboard from his motor boat in cold, stormy waters off the coast of Ventura.
Wearing only a T-shirt, shorts and tennis shoes, Wilson thrashed in 6-foot swells for five hours before the Coast Guard rescued him - almost dead from hypothermia and exhaustion - near an oil platform about three miles offshore.
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"Mike was in the hospital and wasn't in the office to field those calls.
Then that weekend we were evicted from our place of business (for not paying the rent)," he said.
Shortly after Wilson was released from the hospital and his boat was found drifting along the San Diego coast, he sequestered himself in his Santa Maria home and refused to answer investors' calls for information or a return of their money, they say.
Since then, two investor lawsuits alleging fraud, including one from an Arroyo Grande resident, have been filed against Wilson, according to Santa Barbara County court records.
And an investigation into possible criminal actions by Wilson is under way, according to Wilson's lawyer and Jennifer Glimp, an investigator with the Santa Barbara County District Attorney's Office.
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Wilson did not return repeated calls by The Tribune seeking comment.
But many who knew Wilson for years describe the recent turn of events as surreal.
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But a Tribune survey of a dozen investors, as well as interviews with real estate brokers and attorneys assisting investors in their cases against Wilson, showed at least a few dozen investors and $20 million may be at issue.
'Lovable guy'
Wilson is an avid boater and sport fisherman, and has been a member of the San Luis Yacht Club in Avila Beach for many years.
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One of Wilson's loan agents, Karen Gruber, has been the club's commodore as well.
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"The members had a high respect for him, and he took advantage of that," said Ken Brokaw, a yacht club member and real estate broker who helped several club members investigate Wilson's alleged mismanagement of their investments.
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Norman Mehl, a yacht club member from Santa Maria now in his mid-80s, invested with Wilson for 18 years.
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Mehl thought Wilson was trustworthy until about a year ago, when Wilson approached him for a personal loan of $50,000, he said.
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After researching some of his past dealings with Wilson, he discovered one of his loans with Wilson had paid off two years before.
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Wilson never repaid him and stopped returning phone calls, Mehl said.
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Wilson, for instance, was operating since spring 2008 without a real estate license, state records show.
Although some investors thought he was a mortgage broker, he actually was only licensed as a real estate agent and operated his mortgage business under another broker on record, Maralynn Haney.
However, she severed that relationship about the time he also lost his real estate license, according to state filings.
Haney would not tell The Tribune why their professional relationship, which had lasted for more than five years, ended at that time, referring all questions to her Santa Barbara attorney.
Also in 2008, Wilson's company, Pacific Coast Mortgage, was suspended as a corporation because of Wilson's failure to pay taxes, according to state Franchise Tax Board spokeswoman Brenda Voet.
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After his company's permit to operate had expired, Wilson attempted to form another company, Pacific Coast Development.
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Williams claims that Wilson deliberately failed to record her name on real estate documents to give her the collateral as promised.
She also alleges that Wilson operated a Ponzi scheme by using new investor money, rather than the payoffs of the actual loans, to make interest payments to her in order to make his loan operations appear successful and continue to collect money from her, according to court documents.
The other lawsuit, filed in March by Arroyo Grande residents Gordon Henderson and Fern Bergsdorf, alleges that Wilson took $100,000 from them in return for a first trust deed on property in San Benito County in June 2008.
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However, after a search in public records, Henderson and Bergsdorf were unable to locate a recorded executed deed of trust as Wilson represented, the lawsuit states.
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The only person who knows is Mike, and he isn't talking."
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