‘We all lost all our money’: Victims defrauded by Jim Pellerin still haven’t seen a penny in restitution

The $600,000 real estate map began to unravel for Jim Pellerin back in 2018, when his lenders met and compared notes on their defaulted loans. That was after they chanced on a number of investors had been promised the same property with an identical civic address.

James Edward “Jim” Pellerin, 68, a prominent real estate investor who has authored several books on the discipline, was learned responsible of 27 counts of fraud in February for defrauding 17 different lenders of $30,000 each on a failed apartment-flipping map.

Article advise material

Article advise material

According to a summary of the case from Superior Court Justice Robert J. Smith, Pellerin had “oversold” a 12-unit townhome notify in Carleton Place, collecting $30,000 from 17 lenders and promising each a secured stake in an individual unit.

Greg Walker had never met fellow investors Colin Leech and Mary Jane Kelleher unless 2018, after they compared their promissory notes — which guaranteed a 20-per-cent return on their investments — and learned they had been issued for the exact same unit: 30 Code Cres.

“Pellerin offered himself as a real estate investor with 25 years’ skills and he had written three books,” Walker said in an interview. “Having 25 years of real estate skills implies that you already know the appropriate way to depend beyond 12.

“He knew he was selling more of those properties than he had available.”

Many of the investors met Pellerin following a 2016 table presentation at the Ottawa Real Estate Investors Organization (OREIO), where he pitched the plan to invest in a townhouse notify that was to be built in Carleton Place, with the investment returned within nine months, plus 20 per cent income, as soon as the properties offered.

Article advise material

In a separate interview last week, Leech said the invention that he and Walker had been offered duplicate objects “was our first indication that there was something worthy larger going on than we had beforehand imagined.”

Kelleher reached out to others who had invested with Pellerin, whereas Leech and Walker saved a spreadsheet with a running tally of the investors who had signed up for one of many 12 objects.

“The tentacles started spreading out, one of many lenders posted on the OREIO contributors’ bulletin board and folks started coming out of the woodwork,” Leech said.

“We have been able to find all of those different victims and compared notes, and that’s after we learned out he had double-offered one of the most most objects,” he said. “By the time we went to police, we knew about 13 different investors who had purchased 20 objects, and fully 12 have been ever built.”

According to the think’s summary of Pellerin’s trial, he had oversold the objects by issuing 17 promissory notes for 11 properties. In one case, three victims had been issued promissory notes for the same unit.

Pellerin testified in his defence at trial and blamed a “clerical error,” although the think rejected that argument.

Article advise material

“At the same time, Jim was promoting more products and services on the internet, online courses, consultations,” Kelleher said. “All the idea that he was continuing his business as usual really stricken us.”

Pellerin had offered the investment alternative thru his company, Innovalty Investments Ltd., which ceased operations in July 2017.

Pellerin most fair lately operated as an investment advisor below the Road Rock Neighborhood, which he based in March 2021, according to his online profile, about three months after he was charged with fraud by Ottawa police.

Fraud investigators seized Pellerin’s bank data and calculated that $630,000 was restful from investors, whereas fully $275,000 was ever deposited to the builder, Grizzly Homes.

None of his lenders knew that Pellerin had paid himself $100,000 in salary from the funds in 2016, with an additional $50,000 salary in 2017. He also dilapidated the funds to pay for an additional $60,000 in “operating bills” for his different businesses and “personal bills” for coaching and different overhead bills.

“At that point, no person knew it was fraud. We all opinion the deal fair went south,” said Walker. “I called the builder, Grizzly Homes, and they advised me, ‘Yes, we have a $25,000 deposit on each of the 12 properties … and who are you?’

Article advise material

“They advised me they fully had one customer and that was Jim Pellerin. They said they had no knowledge at all about these investors who are speculated to have an interest in the property.”

Now not one of many properties offered by the closing date outlined in the promissory notes and all the $275,000 deposit was forfeited “as a results of (Pellerin’s) failure to shut the transactions on the date agreed upon,” according to the think’s summary.

The promissory notes, the think ruled, contained “a false representation that the lenders would have a valid safety interest” in specified townhouse objects, “which caused them to advance the $30,000 loans to (Pellerin) and build their economic interests at danger.”

Pellerin’s defence lawyer, Bruce Engel, argued in court that the lenders lost their money “as a results of unforeseen events that came about, namely bad success and bad management and that (Pellerin) never lied about any material fact,” the think wrote.

Each lender listed in the indictment lost all $30,000 of their investment, aside from for one who managed to come by smartly $25,000 and another who “demanded the return of the money,” the think wrote.

Article advise material

“All individuals else purchased screwed. We all lost all our money,” said Walker, the lead investor in the challenge who had signed up for five objects. He invested $150,000 with Pellerin and lost it all.

Despite winning a lawsuit against Pellerin where Walker was awarded damages, he has yet to scrutinize a penny in restitution.

“He owes me this money and the court agrees that he owes me the money, but then what happens?” Walker asked. “If he doesn’t have a regular paycheck that you can garnish, you have no recourse. So how manufacture I come by my goddamn money back?”

Victim impact statements have been read into the court document on Friday as the think opinion about an appropriate sentence for Pellerin. That sentence is to be delivered on April 26.

When reached by phone last week, Engel declined to remark on the criminal case and declined remark on the ongoing efforts to come by smartly the money. Engel urged Pellerin may appeal his responsible verdict.

“This crippled a lot of oldsters’s retirement plans,” Walker said.

Pellerin was charged criminally in December 2020 and the matter went to trial in late 2023. He was learned responsible on Feb. 7.

“Getting scammed by a stranger is one thing,” Kelleher said. “Getting scammed by anyone you think is a pal is something worse.”

ahelmer@postmedia.com

Article advise material