12 MARCH 16-22, 2023 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | lice are dealing with shootings, carjackings, assaults, overdoses, robbery; white-collar crime doesn’t often rise on the priority list. When wealthy and connected people are victims of fi nancial fraud or involved in other disputes, they have the resources to deploy an army of attorneys, private investigators and accountants who understand the com- plexities of the legal system and eventually pressure the perp to come to justice. But Stoots was just some guy. To him, trying to navigate the bureaucracy and en- countering the inaction of offi cials was be- wildering. It’s not like Lobins had run off to Mexico or was hiding out somewhere. Heck, he was even in the house where he ran his fraudulent business! By now it was fully dark, and the evening crowds were headed to restaurants and bars — the kinds of places Stoots had sometimes gone with Lobins. All those intimate mo- ments they’d shared as close friends, in life and in business. Was it all an act? All those instances that, in retrospect, were red fl ags and should have warned Stoots to pull out and save himself. Was Stoots a fool to have ever trusted him? Sitting in his car, Stoots went back over the period when everything started to fray and go to hell. In early 2020, Lobins was still sending out his investment newsletter covering topics such as S&P ratings and how Federal Reserve interest rate changes might affect stocks. That summer, the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns pushed Stoots to look for a way to move out of his cramped apartment. As he brokered dozens of deals that sum- mer for clients getting their dream homes, Stoots won the bid for his own. The unique, mid-century-style three-bedroom home in the Applewood neighborhood of Wheat Ridge had a large back porch and a backyard with a pond and a fountain. His daugh- ter would fi nally have a place to play. At $475,000, it was an amazing deal, and he began making arrangements to transfer money for the down payment. “My daughter and I are going to fi nally have a house, and we were so excited,” he re- called. Even Lobins got excited when Stoots showed him the pictures. “He said things to me like, ‘Dude, it’s a great house. You’ve come from nothing to this. Congratulations.’ Like, heartful stuff,” Stoots said. For months, Stoots had been telling Lo- bins that he was going to need to withdraw money from the funds he’d invested with him to use for a down payment. The updated agreements and other signed documents clearly laid out the details and terms for allowable client withdrawals; the quarterly reports that Lobins had been sending to Stoots showed not only that his money was safe, but that the investment fund overall was going gangbusters. “The reports looked legitimate,” said Stoots. “He was showing me how much money everybody else was making, that he was making.” Lobins had even sent a screenshot of a Merrill Lynch “One-Time Non-Retirement Distribution Form” to Stoots showing that the Lobins Group LLC was trying to get a distribution of $72,934.18. Then he got an urgent call from Lobins, asking him to meet him at his house on Larimer. As he sat down in Lobins’s living room, Stoots was surprised by how awful his friend looked, face drawn and serious, with blotches of a rash across his neck and arms. “I was like, ‘You’re freaking me out, dude,’” Stoots recalled. “‘What’s going on? Is everything good?’” Lobins told him he’d been diagnosed with leukemia and the prognosis wasn’t good. Stoots was shocked. They both cried. It was so overwhelming that Stoots decided it was an inconsid- erate moment to be pushing the money issue. As Stoots progressed on the house purchase, completing inspections and the appraisal, he made arrangements to take his friend to chemotherapy ap- pointments. But each time, Lobins would cancel at the last minute. It was very, very strange. As the deadline ap- proached to make the down payment and close on the house, Stoots became ex- tremely nervous. Lobins emailed a com- puter screenshot of an investment account’s state- ments along with supposed receipts showing the wire transactions, but the money never arrived. In a text message, Stoots wrote: “Is there a wire receipt or hasn’t been sent yet? I’m not trying to add to every- thing you’re going through. But my earnest money goes hard on the 4th and if I don’t have the down payment by then, I will need to terminate the contract on the house.” Lobins replied: “$72,934 was withdrawn on Friday. I don’t see any wire receipt or a confi rmation. I’ll get on the horn with Merrill Lynch fi rst thing in the morning. The Denver branch opens at 9:30.” “Okay, awesome. Thanks, man. Kind of freaking out,” Stoots said. But the money never came, and instead, Lobins sent a cascading litany of ostensible problems, including the suggestion that the IRS was investigating Stoots for “Schedule C” issues and that he was in big trouble with the agency. But when Stoots called the IRS, he confi rmed that there were no such issues. He lost the house. “Well, I’m either going to pay you back or I’m going to jail for the rest of my life.” Lobins’s ex-girlfriend remembers him saying that more than a dozen times from 2019 to 2022, in reference to nearly $200,000 that she had placed in his care. (Since she is the victim in a domestic-violence assault case involving Lobins, I’m withholding her real name and calling her Katie.) Katie had met Lobins in California around 2017 through a friend who was an old Army buddy of his. Her initial perception of Lobins was of a physically large man, charismatic, with an earnest demeanor. “He’s very articu- late in the way he speaks. He seems to have a great understanding of how to speak and adapt in social situations with other people and speak to them on their level,” she says. At fi rst they were just friends. “He will talk about things that make him seem vul- nerable.” Katie says. “He sort of acted as a confi dant for me during that time.” But then they started dating, and soon they were living together in a rented apartment in Marina del Rey. Lobins would split his time between there and Denver. In 2018, Katie suddenly had a lot of extra money come in, and she was trying to fi gure out how to invest it. Lobins said he was get- ting back into that business and that a lawyer friend had “these deals falling into his lap”; they could really capitalize on them, as they were “very simple investments that have very quick return.” Lobins brought up a real estate devel- opment with an initial investment of just $30,000; he said she would get an additional $6,000 back within the month. And she did. “So, of course, that was like the baby step into it that made me feel comfortable. Then the following requests were for, like, larger and larger amounts of money,” she recalls. “Basically, that was like that was the bait.” Throughout the next year, Lobins sug- gested other investments. Currently a residential real estate agent, Katie had a background in commercial real estate at the time; Lobins showed her all the documents and discussed the various fi lings. “He could answer sort of every question I had,” she says. Then he wanted her to invest in his wealth fund. “He basically pitched it as like, he’s been so smart with money, and all he wants to do is make his friends and family money, it was personal, and I’m doing it for my kids,” Katie recalls, adding that he showed her charts of how the growth would happen and all the other investors putting in cash. In early 2020, Lobins left California to come back to Denver to close a real estate transaction in which Katie had invested $100,000. “He said he was going home to do that, to close that, and boom, I was gonna get my money,” she says. But fi rst, Lobins asked for $22,215 for “unrealized tax gains” related to her initial investment. She sent him the money. Then the country locked down because of the pan- demic. Katie talked daily with Lobins. He told her he couldn’t wire money back to her because his accounts had been frozen as a result of Stoots’s difficulties with the IRS. As Katie kept ask- ing Lobins about initiating withdrawals, he dropped the news that he had cancer. As the months passed, their conversations “started to get super weird and shady,” she recalls, but she stopped talk- ing about money because she wanted to be supportive while Lobins underwent treatment. One day Katie texted, “Hey love! Did you go to the banks today to sort things out?” “Great timing. I’m here now,” Lobins texted back. “Getting you reset and deal- ing with a Jared issue from Merrill Lynch.” But it never did get sorted out. The vague reasons and excuses “just kept on going, going and going like that,” she says. “I was like, something’s wrong. But basically, I just went into full denial. Because he left and never came back. He has a lot of my money. Says he has cancer, but won’t let me see him. And I felt stupid, like, okay, what is happening right now?” Katie had met Stoots on her previous visits to Denver, but she’d never talked to him about her fi nancial dealings. Finally, they had a phone conversation in late October 2020. Katie recalls: “He was like, ‘Hey does Jay owe you a bunch of money?’” Still staking out his man, Stoots sat in his car parked on Larimer and read out the last text exchange he’d had with Lobins. Stoots: “I don’t know if you’re mad at me or what’s going on man but I’m really con- cerned I’m gonna lose the house. My bank is saying ACH transfers only take 1-2 business days. And they would see if it attempted to come through. Can you please check on it? Stoots: “Jay, you’re one of my best friends. How can you do this to me? Is any of this real?” Lobins: “I’m on the phone. I’ll call you in 15.” Stoots: “Level with me, man. What is go- ing on? No money has come through. I lost the house. You of anybody knows how hard I’ve worked to get here.” Lobins: “Sorry for Deceit Street continued from page 10 continued on page 14 Jared Stoots looking up Larimer Street at the townhouse where Jason Lobins lives. EVAN SEMÓN
