Have you ever heard of DBSI? That’s Diversified Business Services & Investments, Inc., a Meridian-based real estate development company. Several of its principals have been charged with federal crimes and are currently on trial in US District Court in Boise.
According to an Idaho Statesman article, the trial was abruptly recessed this week when a Boise FBI special agent who had been testifying in the trial was found dead in her home of what the Ada County coroner stated was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In April 2013 a federal grand jury in Boise indicted Douglas L. Swenson, 64, of Eagle, Idaho; Mark A. Ellison, 64, of Boise, Idaho; David D. Swenson, 35, of Boise, Idaho; and Jeremy S. Swenson, 40, of Meridian, Idaho, for conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, and interstate transportation of stolen property stemming from their involvement in the DBSI Group of Companies (DBSI). The details of the indictment are in this press release from the Office of the US Attorney for the District of Idaho. Here is a link to the April 10, 2013, federal grand jury indictment.
This 2008 Watch List article gives readers some idea of the geographic and financial span of the allegations raised against DBSI both civilly and criminally.
This 2009 report by Boise television station KTVB explains how the allegations against DBSI affected one particular individual who likened the breadth of the losses allegedly attributable to DBSI as being proportionally similar to those attributed to convicted swindler Bernie Madoff.
OpenCdA wonders if DBSI’s tentacles reached into northern Idaho? According to the website johnschapman.com,
“DBSI and its various entities issued many different investments including non-traded real estate funds (REITS), tenants-in-common investments (TICs), in addition to various notes. It has been alleged in various regulatory and legal filings that the broker-dealers who sold DBSI investments were deficient in discharging their due diligence requirements with regard to approving DBSI for sale to their retail investment clients.”
Our local and regional newspapers, The Coeur d’Alene Press and The Spokesman-Review, seem to have been missing in action on this very significant Idaho-based story.