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A California man who negotiated to buy a Roseburg company working to bring an electric car manufacturing plant to Sutherlin turned out to be a con man, law enforcement authorities say.
Randall Bert Foshie, 57, was arrested earlier this month by the FBI at his home in Roseville, northeast of Sacramento. He is being held on federal charges of wire and mail fraud.
Foshie is accused of carrying out a scheme to defraud investors by asking for up-front “commitment fees” in order to secure loans that Foshie agreed to finance. After collecting the fees, Foshie never made good on providing funding, federal officials said.
Foshie told investors he had recently sold a string of Southern California radio stations and that he needed to re-invest his revenues into new ventures to avoid having to pay large sums of money in taxes.
In all, Foshie collected more than $240,000 in fees from investors and promised to provide more than $1 billion in funding, according to an FBI statement.
Last month, Foshie signed a non-binding agreement with Roseburg-based Nevcar Corp. James Hart, Nevcar’s CEO, said he was drawing up sales documents when an FBI agent called earlier this month to say Foshie was under investigation.
“We never gave him any money,” Hart said. “Mr. Foshie never consummated any agreement with us.”
Hart said he was assured by Foshie’s attorney, who works for a prestigious San Francisco firm with 18 offices worldwide, that Foshie had the money available to finance the deal.
“It took months for us to trust that he had the money he said he had,” Hart said.
Investors in California were told Foshie rubbed elbows with millionaire financier Warren Buffet and they were shown copies of e-mails purportedly exchanged between Foshie and former Apple CEO Gil Amelio, according to a 22-page affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of California by the FBI.
One group of investors, Vision Lending Group, became suspicious after a Foshie associate failed to fly to Florida to meet with the developer of a housing project that Foshie had agreed to help finance. The group hired a private investigator.
The detective learned Foshie had spent 30 months in prison for mail fraud and had declared bankruptcy last summer after claiming his only income was $636 per month in Social Security disability payments. The bankruptcy filing was closed after the court declared it was a “no asset case.”
Four months after filing for bankruptcy, Foshie was renting a beach house in Bandon. And at a gathering of local and state economic development officials, Foshie boasted he had $2 billion to invest in Douglas County.
Foshie, who identified himself as the CEO of Monument Investment & Development, arrived at the Oct. 20 meeting at the Best Western Inn at Face Rock in Bandon with a group of advisers. They included a corporate attorney, a banker, a real estate broker and two company vice presidents and a personal assistant, according to a printed agenda from the meeting.
The discussion centered around construction of the electric car manufacturing plant and a host of other commercial projects that Foshie said he was interested in developing.
Foshie said he wanted to pursue a steel home manufacturing plant, an automotive research and development center, an electric vehicle training center, along with an urgent care center, a factory outlet mall and a movie theater.
He also envisioned a conference center in Sutherlin, along with new restaurants, indoor and outdoor soccer fields, an indoor ballpark, and a swimming pool or wave pool. Foshie wanted to build homes from single-family units to condominiums.
He also spoke with officials from the Port of Coos Bay about the potential for projects there.
“We saw lots of pictures and heard a lot of ideas,” said Sutherlin City Manager Bud Schmidt, who attended the meeting. “Foshie was kind of the guy in the corner with the money.”
Chris Claflin, regional coordinator for the Oregon Economic & Community Development, said he asked Foshie and Nevcar officials for additional information on the project.
“I haven’t heard back from any of them since then,” Claflin said Thursday in a telephone interview from his Coos Bay office.
Nevcar, Hart said, is still looking for investors to build the electric car manufacturing plant.
Excitement swelled in 2002 after ATT R&D, a South Korean manufacturer of electric cars, submitted a letter in March 2002 to build a plant that would employ up to 500 people.
Manshik Kim, the CEO of ATT R&D, sits on the board of directors of Nevcar and the Douglas County company would operate the manufacturing plant in Sutherlin, if built.
Douglas County agreed to provide $2.2 million to fund improvements to the Sutherlin freeway interchange that were needed to accommodate the factory. Later, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio obtained $1 million in federal funding to replace a portion of the county commitment.
Financing was never obtained, though, to build the plant.
Former County Commissioner Dan Van Slyke accused former Sutherlin City Manager Don Moore of exploiting the issue in his 2002 campaign for commissioner. Moore said he was responsible for bringing the project to Sutherlin. Van Slyke questioned whether the factory was real or simply a paper tiger.
Hart, the Nevcar CEO, said it has always been a serious project and remains so.
“We have continuously worked hard to bring in opportunities to this area,” Hart said. “Every opportunity is an opportunity for individuals in our community to have better jobs, higher-paying jobs, a better life than many of them have right now.”
• You can reach reporter John Sowell at 957-4209 or by e-mail at jsowell@newsreview.info.
Randall Bert Foshie, 57, was arrested earlier this month by the FBI at his home in Roseville, northeast of Sacramento. He is being held on federal charges of wire and mail fraud.
Foshie is accused of carrying out a scheme to defraud investors by asking for up-front “commitment fees” in order to secure loans that Foshie agreed to finance. After collecting the fees, Foshie never made good on providing funding, federal officials said.
Foshie told investors he had recently sold a string of Southern California radio stations and that he needed to re-invest his revenues into new ventures to avoid having to pay large sums of money in taxes.
In all, Foshie collected more than $240,000 in fees from investors and promised to provide more than $1 billion in funding, according to an FBI statement.
Last month, Foshie signed a non-binding agreement with Roseburg-based Nevcar Corp. James Hart, Nevcar’s CEO, said he was drawing up sales documents when an FBI agent called earlier this month to say Foshie was under investigation.
“We never gave him any money,” Hart said. “Mr. Foshie never consummated any agreement with us.”
Hart said he was assured by Foshie’s attorney, who works for a prestigious San Francisco firm with 18 offices worldwide, that Foshie had the money available to finance the deal.
“It took months for us to trust that he had the money he said he had,” Hart said.
Investors in California were told Foshie rubbed elbows with millionaire financier Warren Buffet and they were shown copies of e-mails purportedly exchanged between Foshie and former Apple CEO Gil Amelio, according to a 22-page affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of California by the FBI.
One group of investors, Vision Lending Group, became suspicious after a Foshie associate failed to fly to Florida to meet with the developer of a housing project that Foshie had agreed to help finance. The group hired a private investigator.
The detective learned Foshie had spent 30 months in prison for mail fraud and had declared bankruptcy last summer after claiming his only income was $636 per month in Social Security disability payments. The bankruptcy filing was closed after the court declared it was a “no asset case.”
Four months after filing for bankruptcy, Foshie was renting a beach house in Bandon. And at a gathering of local and state economic development officials, Foshie boasted he had $2 billion to invest in Douglas County.
Foshie, who identified himself as the CEO of Monument Investment & Development, arrived at the Oct. 20 meeting at the Best Western Inn at Face Rock in Bandon with a group of advisers. They included a corporate attorney, a banker, a real estate broker and two company vice presidents and a personal assistant, according to a printed agenda from the meeting.
The discussion centered around construction of the electric car manufacturing plant and a host of other commercial projects that Foshie said he was interested in developing.
Foshie said he wanted to pursue a steel home manufacturing plant, an automotive research and development center, an electric vehicle training center, along with an urgent care center, a factory outlet mall and a movie theater.
He also envisioned a conference center in Sutherlin, along with new restaurants, indoor and outdoor soccer fields, an indoor ballpark, and a swimming pool or wave pool. Foshie wanted to build homes from single-family units to condominiums.
He also spoke with officials from the Port of Coos Bay about the potential for projects there.
“We saw lots of pictures and heard a lot of ideas,” said Sutherlin City Manager Bud Schmidt, who attended the meeting. “Foshie was kind of the guy in the corner with the money.”
Chris Claflin, regional coordinator for the Oregon Economic & Community Development, said he asked Foshie and Nevcar officials for additional information on the project.
“I haven’t heard back from any of them since then,” Claflin said Thursday in a telephone interview from his Coos Bay office.
Nevcar, Hart said, is still looking for investors to build the electric car manufacturing plant.
Excitement swelled in 2002 after ATT R&D, a South Korean manufacturer of electric cars, submitted a letter in March 2002 to build a plant that would employ up to 500 people.
Manshik Kim, the CEO of ATT R&D, sits on the board of directors of Nevcar and the Douglas County company would operate the manufacturing plant in Sutherlin, if built.
Douglas County agreed to provide $2.2 million to fund improvements to the Sutherlin freeway interchange that were needed to accommodate the factory. Later, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio obtained $1 million in federal funding to replace a portion of the county commitment.
Financing was never obtained, though, to build the plant.
Former County Commissioner Dan Van Slyke accused former Sutherlin City Manager Don Moore of exploiting the issue in his 2002 campaign for commissioner. Moore said he was responsible for bringing the project to Sutherlin. Van Slyke questioned whether the factory was real or simply a paper tiger.
Hart, the Nevcar CEO, said it has always been a serious project and remains so.
“We have continuously worked hard to bring in opportunities to this area,” Hart said. “Every opportunity is an opportunity for individuals in our community to have better jobs, higher-paying jobs, a better life than many of them have right now.”
• You can reach reporter John Sowell at 957-4209 or by e-mail at jsowell@newsreview.info.
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