Opinion ID: 2976177
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Access Financial and Defendants’ Roles

Text: From about 1998 to 2002, defendants organized, operated, and promoted an investment business called Access Financial (“Access”). Defendants represented that Access was a successful investment organization with a history of returning large profits to clients and that Access had connections to little-known, high-yield investment opportunities in world markets, which were not available to the general public. Defendants further represented to investors that their principal would be kept in guaranteed accounts in a major world bank and would not be at risk. Defendants told investors that Access operated as a tax-free church and that their returns would be non-taxable if they purchased a “church sub-chapter” package from Access. Many of the investors Access attracted were retirees who transferred their retirement accounts to Access on the representation that Access was eligible to receive such rollovers and that the investors’ profits would be tax-free. Defendants, Janet Mavis Marcusse and George Terrance Besser, were the original organizers and partners of Access. Defendant Diane Renae Boss was an 2 assistant and then office manager at Access from 1998 to 2001. She married Wesley Boss in 1999, and he became a sales manager at Access. Wesley and Diane Boss ran the Access office out of their basement from December 1999 to April 2001, when they left the organization. Defendant Donald Maynard Buffin, Jr. joined Access in 1999 as a salesman and became the office manager in April 2001, when the Bosses left. Defendant Jeffrey Alan Visser joined the Access sales staff in 2000 and helped run the office when the Bosses left in 2001. Defendant William Flynn met Marcusse in 1999, and he became her boyfriend. Flynn was a promoter for Access and managed a group of investors from northern Wisconsin. Defendant David Rex Albrecht was also a promoter of Access and received finder’s fees for steering clients to Access. Between 1998 and 2001, Access took approximately $20.7 million from approximately 577 investors. Investors were required to sign a non-disclosure and confidentiality agreement before receiving details of the investment. Investors received a prospectus-type brochure which described the markets in which Access invested and stated that these alleged markets were recognized and regulated by the U.S. government, Federal Reserve, and International Chamber of Commerce. Investors 3 were told that they would receive a return of as much as 20% on their principal. Defendants mailed monthly “profit” checks to early investors in Access representing an approximate 10% return on their principal. By 1999, these checks approximated a 3% return. Defendants also told investors that their principal investments were increasing for a total return of 20% per month. These representations were made in periodic newsletters that Access mailed to investors. Defendants also cautioned investors that they would be “thrown out” out of the program if they talked about it to their accountant or the authorities. By May 2001, defendants had spent almost all of the investors’ principal, and Access was about to collapse. Nonetheless, defendants continued to receive additional funds from new investors, based on the same promises of high returns. Defendants received approximately $1 million in new investor funds after May of 2001. In May 2001, defendants held a two-day seminar for investors at which they made many of the same assurances about the security of investors’ funds. Defendants also presented a program and speaker conveying the message that the IRS and the income tax laws were not really legal. In August 2001, Marcusse, Buffin, and Visser went to the police to report that the Bosses had embezzled a substantial sum of money from Access. The detective with whom they met became suspicious of the nature of the organization and asked 4 defendants for financial records to substantiate their accusations against the Bosses. The records were never produced. Around the same time, Access began to default on the monthly “profit” payments to investors. Through 2001 and 2002, Access represented to investors, orally and in newsletters, that these delays were temporary and that Access was continuing to invest their funds successfully. Notwithstanding these assurances, some investors began to demand the return of their principal, without success. Investors who expressed anger at Access staff were told they were being “thrown out” of the program. In December 2001, the Access office closed, leaving investors with no information.