Amagram November 1998

From WOODTV Grand Rapids, MI
By Henry Erb

(Edmore, September 2, 2003) Hundreds of people could be out millions of dollars. The people are mostly Montcalm County residents who loaned Edmore realtor Doris Shaw money over the last five to ten years. Shaw wrote them notes promising returns of 10% to 20% and sometimes much higher.

She filed for Chapter 11 protection from the US Bankruptcy Court on August 21. Her first bankruptcy filing shows she owes between $1,000,000 and $10,000,000. The list of creditors is over 140 individuals. Some of them represent families so the number of people feeling the pain could be much larger.

The top twenty creditors are out nearly $3,500,000. She lists her assets as less than $50,000. Most of the creditors are farmers, retirees and business people from around the county. Shaw knows intimate details of people's finances. In addition to her real estate business, Shaw did the taxes of many Montcalm residents.

She and her husband have been laying low. Late last week the blinds were drawn on her home and office windows. A note on the office door says the business is "closed until further notice." People were pounding on her door. Most were asking: what did she do with all the money? That's a mystery so far.

Target 8 Investigators found corporate records showing Doris Shaw and her husband Joe are general partners in a new Edmore apartment complex that is still under construction. But most of the $3,000,000 project cost comes from Michigan State Housing Development Authority loans. According to state officials the Shaws had to put up around $700,000, if that much. It us unknown where that sum came from.

The Shaws aren't talking. Even if they put up the money from some of the loans, it is far less than the millions that remain missing. In a possibly related event, the Shaws' career as high level Amway distributors ended on January 3. Quixtar, Amway's successor, would say only that they are no longer affiliated. It wouldn't say why.

The bankruptcy proceedings may shine more light on the mystery of the missing money. So may a Montcalm County Sheriff's Department criminal probe set in motion by our Target 8 investigation.

By Henry Erb

(Edmore, September 3, 2003, 4:45 p.m.) Jerry Anderson is an angry man. He says he gave Edmore realtor Doris Shaw three checks totaling $20,000 just hours before she filed for bankruptcy.

Tuesday, Target 8 Investigators revealed the business dealings that may have cost hundreds of Montcalm County residents millions of dollars. Since the mid-90's Shaw has been getting people to loan her money, supposedly to invest in discounted land contracts.

She suddenly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on August 21. On the night of August 20, Jerry Anderson says he got a call from Shaw. "She brings me chicken and dumplings," Anderson says. She was "just as nice as she could be. So I wrote her three checks totaling $20,000."

Anderson says Shaw clearly knew when she took his money that she was going to file for bankruptcy the next day. In fact, he says, she cashed two of his checks after she had filed. He says he managed to get a stop put on one of the checks. "This wasn't something she was sleeping on. She was going to file bankruptcy and she scammed me...," he says.

Shaw's bankruptcy filing says she could owe as much as $10,000,000 but has assets amounting to less than $50,000. Our Target 8 Investigation has led to a probe by the Montcalm County Sheriff's department which has assigned four detectives to the case. "I want to see this woman behind bars," says Anderson.

 The following from WorkAtHomeSolution.com & Wave 4 FYI:

High-Tech, Personal Touch

Just as network marketing quietly invaded and up-ended the insurance business, it is about to do the same with electronic commerce or "e-commerce"-the sale of products and services over the Internet. With the September 1999 rollout of Quixtar.com, the e-commerce Web site founded by the families that own the Amway Corporation, Amway distributors can become part of an overnight Internet giant. Amway has long invested its massive financial resources in making sure that its distributors have the latest information systems.

Yet all the bells and whistles have not changed the basics of the network marketing business or affected the importance of face-to-face business. As with the Primerica case, face-to-face interaction remains the backbone of successful networking, even for a multi-billion-dollar, digitally driven corporation. Joe and Doris Shaw epitomize the human touch. Retirees in their 60s, they draw on their lifelong experience in building and maintaining relationships-including their experience raising their six children. High-tech systems may underlie their business, but Joe and Doris put their faith in a warm smile and a caring attitude.

A retired schoolteacher, Joe entered the business with no sales experience. He soon found that he could run a successful retailing operation just by being himself. One of Joe's sons was a paramedic who lived full-time at an ambulance base. After selling cleaning supplies to the ambulance company, Joe became their regular supplier. It occurred to him that he could canvass other businesses in the area the same way. "I was already running to the four corners of the county anyway," says Joe, "so I figured I'd just fill in the gaps in between, along the highway."

Joe began stopping in at the businesses he passed. After introducing himself to the owner or manager, he would say, "I have a business supply route with good products and a money-back guarantee." Reactions varied.

Some people would assume that Joe was trying to recruit them into the business. In such cases, Joe would reassure them. "I'm not here to recruit you," he would say. "I'm here to sell you products. I come around twice a month. If I'm here when you need the products, I've got a sale."

The Wave 4 networker uses high-tech tools to promote old fashioned relationships. Joe Shaw, an Amway distributor, gives customers his distributor code, and they can buy through him over the Web. He still visits them with a catalogue - as a reliable supplier and friend.

Low pressure is the key to Joe's approach. Before leaving, Joe politely asks whether the prospect would mind if he stops back the next time he makes his rounds. Most agree. He then gets the prospect's name, address, and phone number, and leaves behind a catalogue and a free container of Amway's anti-bacterial soap.

Joe seeks to become part of the prospect's routine. By showing up promptly every two weeks, he establishes in their minds that he is punctual and reliable. "The relationship gradually warms up," he says. "When they get to where they can count on me, they start buying."

Technically, the customers don't need Joe to place an order. Once they have a catalogue, they can order whatever they like by phone and have it delivered in two days. They use Joe's ID number to place the order so he gets paid every time, even if he never sees the customer again. But Joe chooses to play the role of a personal account manager. His visits remind customers that it's time to order again.

As a regular visitor, Joe can also evaluate his customers and decide when the time is right to pitch the opportunity. His rule of thumb is to wait until they have placed $162 worth of orders-the price of a starter kit. Joe points out to the customer that that same $162 he spent paying the retail price could have been used to get him started as a distributor, buying the products at wholesale and making a profit selling them to others. As always, Joe keeps the pressure low. "Some do it, some don't," says Joe. "About 23 percent join the business."

Find Your Groove

Doris has chosen to take a more aggressive approach to business building. She pitches the business anywhere and everywhere to anyone who will listen. "I don't do any advertising," she says. "All my advertising is word of mouth." The small farming community of Edmore, Mich., where the Shaws live, is hardly a hotbed of commercial activity. But between friends, family, and local business people, Doris has found no shortage of prospects. Nor does she confine her recruiting to locals. Doris tells of signing up one prospect after striking up a conversation on a long plane trip. The man returned home and started a new leg of Doris's downline-in South Africa. "You have to get out of your comfort zone," she says, "both geographically and psychologically."

The Shaws look forward to opening new markets in cyberspace by building a Quixtar organization-which all Amway distributors are entitled to do.

But they're not expecting to sit back and let the Internet do all the work. "It's not going to be a cure-all," says Doris. "It won't be enough just to tell customers, 'We're on the Internet, this is my number, use it.' "

Just as Joe's friendly face keeps his customers on the business route active, so the Shaws plan to supplement the high-tech interaction of Quixtar.com with some old-fashioned, "high-touch" intervention of their own. "The Internet can be very confusing," says Doris. "We're going to do whatever we can to make it simpler for people. We're going to talk to them and find out their needs and show them how they can find what they want on Quixtar.com. We're going to walk them through every function, so they feel comfortable using it."

http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?s=1459600

By Henry Erb

(September 26, 2003, 5:25 p.m.) Edmore Realtor Doris Shaw showed up at the U.S Courthouse in Grand Rapids and ran right into a traffic jam of her own making.

So many of her angry investors were lined up at the security checkpoint that she had to wait several uncomfortable minutes with the scowling crowd. Target 8 Investigators have been telling you how Shaw took millions of dollars from people she knew around Montcalm County, many of them elderly.

One of the 150 or so people who drove to Grand Rapids for the hearing said "it's all my retirement and I still have close to $90,000 with her."

Shaw had been borrowing money for years, sometimes promising huge returns. But in August she suddenly filed for bankruptcy protection. Everyone showed up for the first meeting of creditors in which people could ask her under oath about their money.

There were some revelations. Under intense questioning Shaw said that she couldn't remember telling more than 200 investors that she was using their money to buy discounted land contracts. She admitted she didn't buy any land contracts.

She also admitted that she used their money to pay off other investors. She said it began when she tried to build her Amway distributorship in 1996 and borrowed $2,000,000 to buy Amway products.

She said she then borrowed from other people to pay the first investors and then "had to keep borrowing" to pay the increasing number of people from whom she was getting money.

Outside the U.S. Court House, Stanton attorney Ryan Villet, who represents nearly three dozen victims, said "that's exactly what a Ponzi scheme is. This is a con game."

Shaw and her husband, Joe, did become high level Amway distributors but are no longer affiliated. Amway wouldn't say why. She was vague about it under oath.

Ironically, the largest source of assets from which the investors could collect at least part of their money is apparently in a huge stash of Amway products. Shaw says she has nearly $2,000,000 worth of Amway products warehoused around Montcalm County.

Shaw's latest bankruptcy filing lists more than 200 creditors but the figure she claims she owes has been downsized. She now claims she owes about $4,000,000. That met with disbelief from the angry investors. "I can tell you that I filed claims for $4,400,000 today and that was for 34 people," says attorney Villet. "She lied thru her teeth," said Noele Smith, daughter of one of the victims.

And most of the things I have seen on the documents were all falsified because she owed my dad $420,000 and she had him down for $148,000," said Smith.

Many investors are expected to challenge Shaw's numbers. Shaw deflected questions by repeating that she didn't have her files with her. Shaws demeanor on the stand angered some people. "She sounded like she had no remorse," said Smith.

The Bankruptcy Trustee told the crowd that it could be a year or more before the case is resolved. He warned them not to get their hopes up about how much of their money they'll get back. "Well, we probably won't get very much," said one victim as she left the hearing.

 http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1978248&nav=0RcdOIP5

(Edmore, June 29, 2004, 6:27 p.m.)

Montcalm County Sheriff's Deputies arrested realtor and tax preparer Doris Shaw Tuesday at her office in Edmore.

She is facing 25 counts of fraud.

The criminal probe resulted from our Target 8 investigation report last September. At least 100 of Shaw's clients lost millions of dollars in an investment scheme. In a bankruptcy hearing last fall, Shaw admitted "borrowing" money from people to quickly build up her Amway distributorship. She said she "had to keep borrowing" from others to pay off previous investors.

Victims say that they didn't loan her money, but instead gave it to her to invest in what she claimed were discounted land contracts. Some people lost their life savings.

Shaw's arrest follows the Montcalm County Sheriff's Department's ten month investigation. It had to add two patrol deputies to the department's two man detective unit to handle the complicated probe.

By SUSAN FIELD

Clare Managing Editor

Morning Sun, Mount Pleasant, Mich.

Legal troubles are mounting for an Edmore real estate agent and tax preparer who filed for bankruptcy last year.

Montcalm County Sheriff's officers arrested Doris Shaw Tuesday for allegedly bilking clients out of money in a land contract scam, and two of her business associates are still under investigation, officials said Wednesday.

Shaw, 67, was charged with 25 felony counts of defrauding investors of more than $20,000 each after a 10-month police investigation that included questioning of nearly 200 people.

Each count is punishable by 10 years in prison, a $15,000 fine for each or three times the value of the money or property involved, Montcalm County Sheriff Bill Barnwell said.

Shaw is accused of persuading investors to give her money to purchase land contracts, which she said were tax-free, Montcalm County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Duane Beach said.

"Given that she prepared people's taxes, she knows it's taxable," Beach said.

Investigators interviewed "well over 100" potential victims in the time-consuming investigation that prompted Barnwell to reassign a road patrol officer to the detective bureau to assist in the case.

Detectives worked hundreds of hours on the case while handling other duties, Barnwell said.

"A lot of people lost their life savings in this," Barnwell said. "We're talking second- and third-generation money."

While Shaw is accused of bilking numerous creditors, prosecutors charged her in cases in which they believe she accepted $20,000 or more, Chief Assistant Prosecutor Duane Beach said.

But creditors who gave Shaw less money are likely in the same boat as those who handed over more, Beach said.

Many will be called to testify against Shaw, and none are likely to see their money again, Beach said.

If Shaw is convicted, a judge can order her to pay restitution but she probably would not be able to pay "one percent" of what she owes, Beach said.

It would not have been practical to charge Shaw with more counts because Michigan guidelines indicate that a sentence for a false pretenses conviction would not increase after three convictions, Beach said.

"Twenty-five is almost redundant," Beach said. "It's almost overkill."

Shaw, who filed for bankruptcy at the United States Bankruptcy Court Western Division in Grand Rapids Aug. 23, said at the time that she owed as much as $10 million to creditors, according to state records.

During Montcalm County Sheriff's investigators' probe of the alleged investment scam, one of Shaw's associates, Lyle Lavern Youngs II, was convicted of the Sept. 2, 2003 murders of two of Shaws' creditors at their rural home near Ann Arbor.

A Washtenaw County jury on April 6 convicted Youngs of the first-degree murders of Frank Lopick, 60, and Patricia Olsen, 60.

During the trial, Shaw testified that she owed Lopick $138,000 and that she repaid him all but $12,000 before he died.

Shaw invoked the Fifth Amendment during part of her testimony and refused to answer questions about a 2001 bankruptcy filing, which listed Lopick among more than 200 creditors, according to an Associated Press report.

Shaw was released on $10,000 bond following her arraignment in 64th District Court in Stanton Tuesday.

A hearing to determine if Shaw should stand trial was scheduled for July 13 at 1 p.m. 

Shaw waives preliminary examination

http://www.thedailynews.cc/articles/2004/09/21/news/news03.txt

By Shelly Strautz - Daily News assistant news editorSTANTON -- Edmore businesswoman Doris Shaw waived a preliminary examination Monday in 64B District Court on false pretenses charges stemming from accusations that she stole up to $10 million from investors.

Shaw, 67, was arrested June 29 on a 25-count felony warrant in connection with accusations that she stole investors' money. She has been free on $10,000 bond since then.

Each charge is punishable by a sentence of 10 years in prison and/or a $15,000 fine, according to Montcalm County Prosecutor Andrea Krause.

"She has the right to a preliminary exam, but she waived that right today," Krause said. Shaw's arraignment in Montcalm County's 8th Judicial Circuit Court is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Oct. 14.

Montcalm County Sheriff's Office detectives began investigating Shaw last September when investors started accusing her of stealing money they believed they were investing in discounted land contracts. The investors accused Shaw of offering up to 70 percent interest on money she borrowed.

Shaw filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy last September. During a hearing at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Western District of Michigan in Grand Rapids, she told her creditors that she initially borrowed about $2 million from investors in 1996 and 1997 to purchase Amway products. Subsequent transactions were made to pay off debtors.

As a previous Diamond Distributor with Amway, Shaw said the products were purchased as inventory to be sold on a vending route that her husband, Joe Shaw, helped service. Those products included vacuum cleaners, water purifiers, air purifiers, pots and pans, and other items.

The couple formerly operated Shaw Supply -- a business that included a pyramid of about 200 Amway distributors through which the Shaws sold supplies to the public from 1996 to 2000. Shaw Supply is now defunct.

Since then, Doris Shaw has continued to operate Shaw Real Estate and Edmore Accounting, a payroll, tax and accounting business in Edmore.

Her attorney, Larry Willey of Grand Rapids, did not return a telephone call seeking comment. No charges have been brought against Joe Shaw, according to Krause. However, she said federal charges against Doris Shaw are pending.

"We did send about 10 potential charges to the U.S. Attorney's Office for federal charges," Krause said. "Those are still pending. They have assured us that they are still looking at them and are going to be considering them for

possible future charges."

Assistant news editor Shelly Strautz can be reached at

sstrautz@staffordgroup.com or (616) 754-9303 ext. 3055.

http://www.thedailynews.cc/articles/2005/01/06/news/news03.txt

http://www.thedailynews.cc/articles/2005/01/06/news/news02.txt

http://www.thedailynews.cc/articles/2005/07/08/news/news03.txt   Doris Shaw pleads no contest
http://www.freep.com/news/statewire/sw118175_20050708.htm

From today's Grand Rapids Press:

http://www.mlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-1/112541329671940.xml&coll=6&thispage=2

Woman's 1-year jail sentence irks victims bilked for millions
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
By Ed White
The Grand Rapids Press

STANTON -- Investors were angry Monday as a former Amway distributor was given just a year in jail for running a multimillion-dollar swindle fueled by generous interest payments and her small-town charm among elderly folks in Montcalm County.

Doris Shaw, 68, promised to invest their money in real-estate contracts. Instead, she was using new money to pay off earlier investors, a traditional Ponzi scheme that finally ended in bankruptcy in 2003.

Shaw's financial woes apparently began when she needed money to pay for more than $1 million in Amway products acquired on credit. She and her husband, Joe, were featured on the cover of a magazine promoting successful Amway distributors in 1998.

Pallets of goods, from vitamins to vacuum cleaners, are among the assets being sold by a bankruptcy trustee to raise money to pay her investors.

"I never intended to hurt anyone, but I know I did," Shaw tearfully told Circuit Judge Charles Miel.

Under a deal with prosecutors, Shaw in July pleaded no contest to three counts of fraud. She could have withdrawn the plea if the jail sentence had exceeded 12 months.

Miel noted her age, clean criminal record and an ability to get a job and pay restitution after her release. Shaw also will spend a year on house arrest and perform 1,000 hours of community service.

"Justice fails again," said one of the nearly 80 spectators who filled the courtroom.

"I think the judge just lost a few votes," another said.

Leona Benson said she is owed $197,000.

"I'm surprised she's even walking," Benson, 78, said, referring to the disgust for Shaw, a real-estate agent in Edmore who also prepared tax returns.

"Doris did all of our taxes. You couldn't get out of her office without a hug and a kiss," Benson said outside court.

It is difficult to pin down the exact price of the crime.

John Piggins, an attorney for the trustee overseeing Shaw's bankruptcy, said it could be as high as $14 million, based on amounts paid to investors over a six-year period. Investors and other creditors so far have filed $10 million in claims.

"I don't think it's a soft sentence," defense attorney Larry Willey said, noting the home detention. "I'm not doubting that some people were injured, but I don't think it's fair to blame everything on Doris Shaw. Some of these interest rates were incredible."

Separately, federal authorities are investigating Shaw for the truthfulness of her testimony in bankruptcy court, among other issues, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Murray said.

Ryan Villet, an attorney speaking for some of the 300 to 400 investors, told the judge Shaw carried a "certain weight in this community" and was guilty of "betrayal."

In bankruptcy court, the trustee so far has gathered $1 million from several sources, including the sale of real estate and Amway products, Piggins said.

The trustee also has filed more than 150 lawsuits against investors, seeking to recover money that would be shared by the larger pool, he said.

Blair Auction &Appraisal in Jenison has been selling Shaw's Amway products over the Internet since January, including 1,300 pot-and-pan sets and 700 vacuum cleaners.

"We've got a fair amount left," Wayne Blair said.