Woman with celestial deals arrested on fraud charge

Thursday, Jan. 15, 2004 | 11:13 a.m.

As President Bush announced plans to send astronauts to the moon, Mars and beyond Wednesday, a Canadian woman sat in a Las Vegas jail on a warrant for fraud and theft in connection with her sales of outer space real estate.

Lisa Fulkerson, 33, of Chatham, Ontario, is awaiting extradition to Canada where she is accused of bilking investors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars and failing to show up in court.

The arrest warrant was issued in mid-November, a month after she disappeared with her husband, Rod, and their two daughters.

The FBI in Las Vegas arrested Fulkerson at a kiosk in the Desert Passage at the Aladdin on Friday. She was selling hand lotion, the FBI said.

Fulkerson's family was in town, but they were not named in the warrant and were not arrested, FBI spokesman Todd Palmer said.

Nearly four years ago, Fulkerson was named "first Ambassador of the Lunar Embassy."

Lunar Embassy is a Gardnerville company owned by Dennis M. Hope who claims to have exclusive legal rights to sell property on celestial bodies. He filed his claim with the intent to invest and occupy eight planets and their moons with the United Nations in 1980 based on existing laws.

The designation Hope bestowed upon Fulkerson gave her the exclusive right to sell moon real estate in Canada. She named her company, Moon Land Registry. She also was allowed to sell real estate on Mars, Venus and the Jupiter moon Io.

"Lisa is a determined young woman with tremendous drive and direction," Hope said on his website when he announced the ambassadorship in February 2000.

His tune has since changed.

"This (Fulkerson's arrest) is great news especially for the people of Canada who were cheated," said Hope, who moved his company to Gardnerville from Rio Vista, Calif., in 2001.