Slaying victim had history of scams

Steve Kanigher and Jeff German

Thursday, Aug. 30, 2001 | 11:06 a.m.

A Las Vegas man shot to death in front of his home Friday attended a bankruptcy hearing two days earlier in which he was accused of withholding financial records from creditors who claimed he owed $6.38 million.

Richard Wood had been accused in U.S. Bankruptcy Court and in numerous lawsuits of bilking at least 40 investors nationwide since the mid-1990s in schemes involving real estate, construction loans and lumber products. He was also investigated over the past three years by the FBI, U.S. Postal Service and Nevada Securities Division, according to the bankruptcy trustee in his case.

It all came to an end for the 53-year-old Wood early Friday when Metro police say he was shot several times while watering shrubbery outside his southeast valley home at 5865 Via Manigua.

"He owed a lot of different people money," Metro Homicide Lt. Wayne Petersen said. "He was in court Wednesday morning and Friday morning he was dead. I don't think that necessarily was a coincidence.

"It was pretty obvious at the scene that he was specifically targeted for some reason."

Wood's former business partner, Allen J. Menard of Las Vegas, who filed for bankruptcy in 1998, did not return phone calls. But Wood's former attorney, David Crosby, speculated Wednesday that a disgruntled investor may have had Wood killed.

"My first thought was that somebody was mad because he got some of their money," Crosby said. "He left a lot of people who were not happy with him in terms of his business dealings."

Wood landed in bankruptcy court involuntarily in October 1999 when local attorney Victoria Nelson, representing three out-of-town investors, petitioned the court to appoint a trustee to liquidate Wood's assets. But Wood repeatedly declined to turn over his personal financial records and most investors failed to recoup any portion of their investments, trustee Timothy Cory of Las Vegas said Wednesday.

"Mr. Wood said that all of the assets that he acquired from the funds from the investors were in three of his corporations," Cory said. "But we have found nothing of any value. I didn't feel I got adequate records from Mr. Wood on the personal end. I haven't found any assets from the inception of the case."

In addition to $5.4 million he allegedly owed to creditors holding unsecured claims, Wood was subject to $369,694 in back taxes and interest from the Internal Revenue Service for the 1983-1995 tax years. He also allegedly owed $586,910 to creditors with secured claims.

One of those creditors, Long Beach Mortgage Co. of Orange, Calif., foreclosed on his five-bedroom, 3,981-square-foot Via Manigua home last spring, though Wood and his family continued to live there. But Cory said there was no equity in the heavily mortgaged home that could be collected by creditors.

At the Aug. 20 court hearing and with about 30 investors or their representatives in attendance, Wood asked Bankruptcy Judge Robert C. Jones to be released from the bankruptcy proceeding. But Jones declined, and it remains an open case despite Wood's death. Cory said creditors still may get some money back if any other Wood assets are discovered.

"Several investors had discussions with Mr. Wood in which he talked about off-shore assets," Cory said.

Nelson charged in court documents that Wood was operating a Ponzi scheme in which he used money from newer investors to pay off older investments, leaving the newer investors empty-handed.

"Over the course of two years, the debtor was able to bilk numerous people out of millions of dollars," she informed the court.

But Las Vegas attorney Lester Berman, who represented clients who lost $200,000, said he wouldn't be surprised if Wood held accounts in such off-shore havens as the Cayman Islands and Isle of Man that are beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement agencies.

"He could have millions of dollars somewhere off shore but because of privacy laws in those places you get nowhere if you make inquiries," Berman said. "It's just like Swiss bank accounts."

Berman represented Western States Contracting Inc. of Las Vegas and its chairman, Wesley Adams, who won a combined $288,246 judgment in Clark County District Court in June 1999 against Wood and one of his companies, Aero Financial Inc. They never collected anything, however.

"I don't believe Mr. Wood was an honest person," Berman said. "I do believe Mr. Wood was involved in various monetary scams. The people who invested with him were susceptible to believing his glowing promises of big returns. I heard that one woman who lost money invested funds that her child was supposed to use to go to college.

"My client has a very slim chance of getting anything back."

Court records show that Wood began engaging in nefarious but relatively small-time activity at least as far back as 1990, when he was first charged in Clark County with issuing checks that were not backed with sufficient funds.

He pleaded guilty in April 1992 to a gross misdemeanor on a bad-check charge and landed in the Clark County Detention Center for a year. He also was ordered to pay $44,675 in restitution. The following year he pleaded guilty on another gross misdemeanor charge and was placed on three years' probation, fined $8,000 and ordered to perform 120 hours of community service.

The Nevada attorney general's office later investigated Wood and charged him with obtaining money and property under false pretenses, a felony. But the charges were dismissed in May 1996.

It was about that time that Wood began traveling from coast to coast, soliciting individuals at investment seminars to support his ventures. Among the companies he formed for that purpose were Aero Financial Inc., Aero Properties Ltd. and Aero Truss Inc., all of Henderson.

"Richard was very good at promoting himself and his businesses," Crosby said. "He could sell ice cubes to an Eskimo. He was absolutely likable."

An example of that charm occurred in January 1997 when Gary and Marcia Higginson of Kansas met Wood at a seminar in North Carolina. Court documents allege that the Higginsons agreed to invest $100,000 through Aero Financial with promises that they would make six to 10 times their investment.

They claimed that Wood was going to sell stock through an offering the following month and that the Higginsons would see the value of their shares rise at least six times on the opening day of that offering. No such offering occurred, however. The Higginsons ran into Wood again at an investment conference in San Antonio in May 1997 and at another seminar in Overland Park, Kan., three months later.

Wood continued to seek additional investments from the Higginsons while promising that the stock offering was still going to occur. Meantime, the couple agreed to invest an additional $50,000 in September 1997 through Aero Truss to buy lumber for manufacturing purposes.

Of the $150,000 total, the only money the couple got back was $7,500. They alleged that Wood sent them three other checks totaling $57,500, but those checks bounced. A similar situation was experienced by Philip Ribando of Matthews, N.C., who invested $50,000 through Aero Financial, but got nothing in return.

"This default has put great financial strains on myself and my family," Ribando wrote to the bankruptcy court in January 2000. "We had to sell our home to restructure this debt. Myself, like many other people have made a huge mistake in trusting Rich Wood.

"My family and I will end up paying for this mistake for many years to come."

The pattern of bad checks that Wood was said to have issued in the early 1990s continued through the end of the decade, according to lawsuits. One example occurred in 1997, when nine employees of Wood's Aero Truss cashed $7,293 worth of payroll checks at the former Alystra Casino in Henderson. The checks bounced, and the casino's holding company won a $20,604 judgment in District Court against Wood and his company.

Las Vegas attorney Steven Szostek also claimed to have been stuck in 1999 by a bad $25,000 check that Wood gave him to cover expenses related to an investment in two parcels of land in Lincoln County. Szostek eventually won a $17,448 judgment against Wood.

On those occasions when Wood responded to lawsuits, he typically denied the allegations. In the Alystra case, he blamed the bad checks on the casino's "negligence." But it reached the point where he would not even return calls from his own attorney.

It was for that reason that Crosby withdrew as Wood's attorney in a case in which his client was sued by a Fresno, Calif., lumber company for failure to pay $31,593 for goods and services. Crosby said he had not spoken to Wood for at least 18 months.

Cory said the Nevada Securities Division began looking into Wood's affairs about three years ago, but was only able to obtain his corporate records, not his personal records.

Deputy Secretary of State Pam Ashworth said the state investigated "investor complaints" regarding Woods' companies. But because of jurisdictional problems and statutes of limitation, the complaints were forwarded to U.S. Postal inspectors.

The FBI, Cory said, also got involved, but FBI spokesman Daron Borst in Las Vegas refused to confirm or deny it investigated Wood.

Petersen, however, said the FBI provided Metro detectives with information on Wood.

Homicide detectives have been sifting through "reams of documents" provided by the Bankruptcy Court and Wood's family, Petersen said. The family, he said, turned over many of Wood's personal records.

"We don't have any focus yet," Petersen said. "There's a lot of information."

Petersen said Wood was gunned down about 8:45 a.m. Friday with a large caliber handgun. The shooter was described as a white male in his 50s or 60s with gray hair. He was wearing a khaki-colored baseball cap.

The shooter, Petersen said, got out of the passenger side of a blue Hyundai with Nevada handicapped license plates. The driver was described as a white male with dark hair.

Petersen said Wood's son saw the shooter standing over Wood, who was on his back, and firing the last few shots down at him.

"Obviously someone wanted him dead and wanted to make sure," Petersen said. "We're looking at all of his associates and past business practices."

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