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According to the book, Paul Noe Sr. and his younger brother, Clifford, crafted a series of high-dollar cons during the 1960s and 1970s. Among other scams, they bought a Texas bank with money borrowed against worthless companies and then looted the bank, and used forged financial documents in an attempt to take over a British bank. British regulators foiled that takeover attempt, but not before the Noes printed phony CDs in the British bank's name and used them to defraud victims worldwide.
For their various villainies, both men have long been known to FBI agents, federal and state prosecutors, banking regulators, and flimflam victims as "Dr. Noe." FBI sources have described them as being among the most notorious con men in U.S. history.
Recent events suggest the elderly Noe brothers did not dedicate themselves wholly to good works in recent years.
Last week a North Carolina judge convicted Paul Howe Noe Sr. on charges of conspiracy and wire fraud in connection with a Boca Raton, Fla.based scheme in which the elder Noe bilked more than $1.1 million from businesses seeking venture capital financing; Clifford Noe pleaded guilty on similar charges earlier this year.
The Noe brothers, both in ailing health, await sentencing. They may spend the last of their days in prison. But their legacy apparently lives on.
Court testimony, documents introduced at trial, an array of other public records, and interviews with law enforcement officials and investigators in Florida, California, and South Carolina show an ominous connection between the East Coast scammery of the Drs. Noe and the West Coast trust-mill and annuity-sales operations linked to Paul Noe Jr.
If assertions made during the trial of Paul Noe Sr. are correct, the dubious financial empire of the Super Swindlers is directly linked to West Coast trust mills that have at least potential control over the assets of thousands of California families.
The value of those assets could run into the billions of dollars.
To understand why the Super Swindler connection could be ominous here, you need to understand some details about the types of investment fraud Paul Noe Sr., Clifford Noe, and Paul Noe Jr. have perpetrated on the East Coast.
The fraud at issue centers on a firm called Great American Trust Co., which Paul Noe Jr. registered in South Carolina in 1984. Two years later, Paul Jr. and his Uncle Clifford cooked up a scheme in Philadelphia by which they would buy an insurance company, using $100 million in forged certificates of deposit. Unfortunately, they happened to buy some of the fake CDs from an undercover FBI agent.
Clifford Noe fled to Costa Rica, but the FBI managed to lure him to New Orleans, where he was arrested and later tried on charges of conspiring to commit fraud. Paul Jr. was convicted in 1989 on five counts of aiding and abetting wire fraud.
It's unclear what happened to Great American Trust during the subsequent decade, but in the mid-1990s, Paul Sr. and Clifford, going by the names Paul Randall and Clifford Goldstein, began soliciting business on behalf of the firm from entrepreneurs unable to get standard bank financing for large-scale projects. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint filed in February 2002, the brothers and four accomplices accepted fees from businesses seeking entree into a program that would provide them with venture capital.
That same month the federal government charged Noe Sr. and Clifford Noe with wire fraud. The government contended the venture capital program did not exist, and Great American Trust had almost no assets with which to back it.
In fighting the charges against Paul Noe Sr., defense attorneys argued that Great American Trust was indeed a legitimate company that handled valuable assets. In doing so, the defense revealed the link between the elder Noe's Florida-based investment fraud scheme and Paul Noe Jr.'s living-trust mill on the West Coast.
Among other things, the defense submitted as evidence a letter printed on letterhead from the American Association of Independent Paralegals showing an address in Aliso Viejo, Calif., as company headquarters. The address had also been used by Paul Noe Jr. and by EPICO, a trust mill registered under the name of Noe Jr.'s former wife, Robin Noe.
The letter said that AAIP -- which, according to public records, had links to EPI-Estate Planning Inc. -- "was in the business of preparing Revocable Living Trusts in the states of California, Arizona and Nevada." The letter went on to state that AAIP had "protected over 30,000 families with a Revocable Living Trust."
"As a service to its clients," the letter said, "AAIP offered a referral for Great American Trust to act as a Successor Trustee."
If what the letter says is true -- if Paul Noe Jr.'s associates and employees have indeed been successful in naming Great American Trust Co. as successor trustee on the living trusts his associated companies sell -- Great American Trust's potential reach is indeed staggering. Under such an arrangement, Great American Trust apparently could take control of the assets of an AAIP customer if the person became incapacitated, or died.
Advocates for the elderly contend the firms connected to Paul Noe -- including EPI-Estate Planning Inc., EPI, EPICO, and AAIP -- comprise one of the biggest trust-mill operations in California. These firms routinely take out half- and full-page advertisements -- touting two-a-day seminars week after week, year after year -- in major newspapers. Though the seminar I attended was small, Prescott Cole, attorney for California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, told me that seminars in Southern California by EPI-Estate Planning and its related companies have sometimes drawn hundreds of elderly people who fear for their assets, and perceive a bargain in the advertised rate for creation of a living trust: $399.
