10 MARCH 16-22, 2023 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | various investment funds on behalf of clients. Stoots was among several friends and busi- ness associates who’d entrusted their savings to Lobins — only to see them disappear. For almost three years, Stoots had been trying to compel authorities to hold Lobins accountable. “I’ve called the police so many times,” he said. “Originally, they were telling me to keep my distance, but nothing was getting done. So I was like, ‘Well, if you guys aren’t do- ing anything, I’m gonna start getting out there.’” I’d known Stoots many years ago, as an extremely talented sponsored skateboarder in the local scene. But I’d barely spoken with him for about a decade when he called me out of the blue. “This is probably going to sound a little crazy,” he cautioned. His story certainly sounded complicated, but a trip to the Denver courthouse to look up legal cases made things clearer, with more details com- ing from documentation from state agencies, as well as emails, text messages and copies of agreements provided by victims. In early 2021, state securities investiga- tors found that Lobins had not been operat- ing his business legitimately. Stoots then won a subsequent lawsuit against Lobins Wealth Management, with a Denver District Court judge award- ing him a whopping $518,168 for his losses and damages in May 2021. Evidence show- ing Lobins mishandling and spending investor money had prompted the Denver District Attorney’s Offi ce to fi le crimi- nal charges against him for multiple felonies in January 2022, when a warrant was is- sued for his arrest. Even so, when Stoots reached out to me, more than a year had passed since that warrant had been issued, and Lobins was still on the loose. It’s not like he was in hiding, either. For twelve months, Stoots had been repeatedly telling investigators that Lobins was living and work- ing out of the same house on Larimer Street where he’d always been. Could a busi- nessperson in Denver com- pletely ignore accumulating court cases and a felony arrest warrant for over a year and just continue to live his best life? That’s what seemed a little crazy. But through multiple interviews and public documents, a story emerges of a man involved in some truly innovative feats of gaslighting, storytelling and fabrication. At various points, Lobins claimed that he was undergoing cancer treatment, manufactured a fake IRS “money laundering” investigation, and manipulated his own friends in order to maintain the ruse. And it all started where it ended, on Larimer Street. In 2013, Stoots was pushing his daughter on an infant bicycle along Larimer when he saw a man standing outside a townhome with a cigarette and coffee. They struck up a conversation, and Stoots learned that Jason Lobins was a real estate developer who had just moved to Denver from Austin. Stoots had been working at El Diablo when the restaurant shut down unexpectedly, leaving him unemployed. He was living in an income-restricted apartment on Larimer that he shared with a roommate. It was so small that his daughter, for whom he had recently won shared custody, slept in a crib at the foot of his bed. Stoots knew that he had to make a lifestyle change, and was about to take the exam to get his real estate license. Asked what he did for a liv- ing, Lobins replied that he was “retired.” The implication was that he was wealthy. At fi rst glance, Lobins looked like a prototypical Denver bohe- mian with a ZZ Top-length beard and an outdoorsy style. But his semi-formal speech and man- nerisms, owing to his years in the military, set him apart amid the urban creative-class circles. Lobins had grown up in the Phoenix area; shortly after he graduated from college, 9/11 hit and he enlisted in the military. He served as an Army Ranger in several de- ployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. He left the military in his mid-thirties, but being a veteran continued to be a core part of his identity. He’d just started the support group Help Out Not Hand Outs after hearing about a veteran who was almost homeless; the organization’s mission was to provide non- fi nancial support and aid, and act as a liaison for military veterans in need. In 2013, the group received $22,500 in donations, and Lobins claimed that 97 cents of every dollar donated went straight to helping Colorado veterans. (The nonprofi t was eventually dissolved in 2015.) Lobins also served on the boards of other nonprofi ts, helped set up veterans’ resource centers, and was involved in mentoring veterans who found themselves wrapped up in the Douglas County judicial system. Stoots was impressed. After Stoots got his real estate license, he be- gan showing Lobins residential properties that he could potentially buy and fl ip, or maybe pop the top and remodel. Eventu- ally, Stoots brokered the pur- chase of two homes for Lobins, who paid with cash each time. Their friendship grew to an almost brother-like closeness. Lobins and Stoots would talk with each other almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Lobins had a daughter with his then-girlfriend; fa- therhood was another com- monality they bonded over. They lived so close to each other that it was easy to grab coffee or lunch. As the years passed, Stoots’s career fl our- ished, and he earned several awards from the real estate brokerage where he worked for total units sold. Lobins offered to bring him in on certain investments. In 2019, Lobins told Stoots that he had got- ten his SEC licensing and had been granted approval to start a “wealth management fund” exclusively for his friends and family mem- bers. Other investors were putting hundreds of thousands of dollars into Lobins Wealth Management, he said, while offering Stoots an opportunity to get in on the deal. Stoots agreed to make an initial $25,000 investment and signed a Limited Partnership Private Equity Fund Agreement with Lobins, which projected a 28 percent annual return. With the real estate market booming, Stoots was incredibly busy. After he col- lected seven real estate brokerage commis- sion checks worth approximately $81,000, his accountant advised him to establish a business entity with a bank account for tax purposes before the checks expired. In the meantime, Lobins offered to hold the money in the Lo- bins Group LLC, and they signed a promissory note that Lobins would repay Stoots within ten days. But when Stoots called about getting the money, Lobins initially said a wire transfer had failed be- cause of a bank error. Later, he claimed that the U.S. Treasury had frozen his bank accounts because of a money-laundering accusation related to the third-party checks. “I’m like, ‘Nobody’s called me from my bank, nothing,’” Stoots recalls telling Lobins. “‘This doesn’t really add up. Like, what’s going on?’” But Stoots still thought that Lobins was worth millions of dollars, and says he felt bad both- ering his friend about the situa- tion. After all, Lobins asserted that his lawyers and assistants were going after these banks, and that they were “gonna unfreeze my money.” In a subsequent text message, though, Lobins wrote that the “banking is still fucked up...I’ll hit you up and fi ll you in on the workaround for sending you $81k this week. I got a plan B and C working right now.” Stoots remembers think- ing: “This guy’s got so much to lose, he’s worth so much money, how could this not be legit? Why would I doubt this?” Stoots was still sitting in his car on Larimer Street, waiting for the freaking cops to come. Hours had passed. He’d called police dis- patch for an ETA. He’d phoned the point of contact he’d been given at the DPD, who was assigned to the case. Eventually, he got a call back from an offi cer. “They basically said, ‘Yeah, we’re not going to come,’” Stoots recalled. “I mean, I don’t know why they won’t just knock on his door, but he’s like, ‘Well, you both know what’s gonna happen. He’s gonna see us in uniform. He’s not gonna answer.’ I’m like, ‘Well, can’t we get clever?’ I mean, obviously, it’s not a priority.” He’d heard the same story at least a dozen times over the past twelve frustrat- ing months, all while pictures popped up on Lobins’s Instagram feed of him at a Broncos game on January 8 and partying at the Na- tional Western Stock Show on January 26. Stoots was confronting the hard reality that these kinds of cases do not always receive top billing among local law enforcement. Un- less the scoffl aw is high-profi le or there’s some kind of special focus on the case, authorities will often not take action to get the warrant needed to arrest someone inside their home. On any given day, po- Deceit Street continued from page 9 continued on page 12 JASON LOBINS FACEBOOK Jason Lobins posted a photo with Jared Stoots on his Facebook page, when they were still friendly. COURTESY OF JARED STOOTS
