A father and daughter accused of stealing $8.6 million from investors through a Ponzi scheme on Maui don’t have enough money to hire lawyers, according to the financial statements they submitted in U.S. District Court.
Court-appointed lawyers represented George Lindell, 65, and his daughter Holly Hoaeae, 39, in federal court Monday at their arraignments on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.
Lindell, who now lives in Washington state, could not afford plane fare to Honolulu for Monday’s court hearing, Federal Public Defender Peter Wolff said in court documents. So a federal judge ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to provide Lindell transportation to Honolulu.
Wolff said Lindell lives on his $1,737 monthly Social Security checks and intermittent commission checks from life insurance policies he sold when he was a licensed insurance agent. Wolff said Lindell is unemployed and last worked as a deckhand last summer on a friend’s commercial fishing boat.
Hoaeae now lives in Texas.
Both pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to stand trial in August.
U.S. MAGISTRATE Judge Richard L. Puglisi allowed each to remain free on unsecured $100,000 signature bonds pending trial.
Lindell and Hoaeae operated their Ponzi scheme from 2005 to 2010 through their Kihei businesses The Mortgage Store and True Wealth Group Living by Design, according to a grand jury indictment.
U.S. Attorney Florence T. Nakakuni said Lindell and Hoaeae persuaded people to invest in a private savings account they called "The Parking Lot" and promised guaranteed returns of 6 to 8 percent.
But instead of investing their clients’ money in bonds, as they promised, Lindell and Hoaeae spent the money on themselves and used money from new "investors" to pay off older ones, the indictment says. Lindell and Hoaeae spent some of the money on a car, a truck, a New Zealand safari and on construction of a home in Lahaina, the indictment says.
In 2010 The Mortgage Store — through which Lindell and Hoaeae are accused of helping their victims refinance their homes at inflated values to give them the money to invest in The Parking Lot — filed for bankruptcy, citing assets of just more than $14 million and liabilities of nearly $14.7 million.
