I feel like I was totally betrayed.
We found absolutely nothing about him.
(MUSIC SEGUE)
[00:00:24] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam.
I’m your host, Bob Sullivan.
Kindness, empathy, generosity, gratitude, these are all wonderful human impulses to be cherished and honored.
The world wouldn’t go round without them.
But sometimes they can be used against us.
She jumped at the chance to help.
But instead of hope, Janet found herself living through months of despair.
At one point there was a restraining order which kept her from visiting part of her own property.
Here’s our story.
Let’s meet Janet.
[00:01:24] Bob: Thats a beautiful part of Oregon that you’re in.
[00:01:26] Janet Grosz: Well thank you, thank you.
People come to fish here.
[00:01:43] Bob: How long have you been there?
[00:01:44] Janet Grosz: About 19 years.
[00:01:46] Bob: Where did you move from?
[00:01:47] Janet Grosz: Southern Cal.
[00:01:48] Bob: Ah, you’re not at sunny, warm beaches anymore though.
[00:01:50] Janet Grosz: No, unfortunately.
This beautiful, kind of like overcast here in the Northwest is beautiful too.
It’s rather rainy, but we need the rain.
We can’t complain.
[00:02:01] Bob: Janet and her husband grew avocados back in California.
Couldn’t do that in Oregon.
But they did grow apples and pears and even nectarines when they moved.
Rural Oregon was a great place to settle down after her nearly four decades of working in healthcare.
She dives deep into charity work to deal with the grief, even signing up for overseas mission trips.
And right then, in mid-2018, hope enters her life.
I said, hey, if I could help, why not?
You know, I was more than willing to do that.
So basically, I said, sure, why not?
[00:03:33] Bob: What what did you think when you heard his voice the first time?
[00:03:41] Bob: And was it a, a deep voice?
Did he sound confident?
[00:03:44] Janet Grosz: Deep voice, confidence, calm.
Like he was a caring person.
[00:03:49] Bob: Hope tells Janet all about his ambitious plans to help homeless veterans.
He has a nonprofit called Impossible Roads.
Janet’s big, empty property seems like just the place.
So he agrees to fly down to Oregon and they meet in person.
Did, do you remember anything about the, the car ride?
[00:04:26] Janet Grosz: Well, basically say he was dying, he had cancer.
You know, and you feel sorry for the person.
And you feel like why not help out if it’s possible for you to.
[00:05:01] Janet Grosz: Yeah, in fact he was, you know, confident.
[00:05:33] Janet Grosz: Oh, he liked it here.
[00:05:45] Bob: John Hope keeps pushing Janet on the tiny homes idea.
[00:06:21] Janet Grosz: Right.
[00:06:21] Bob: Yeah, okay, so how did that transaction occur?
Don’t contact anybody.
Just let’s go to the title company and you could sign this paperwork."
You know, and I didn’t read it completely.
Meanwhile, months go by, and no tiny homes arrive.
I said, “What?”
You know, he was bragging to everybody that he got 30 acres.
And I said, then I asked him personally when we were driving.
And he said, yeah, he took 30 acres and recorded it.
[00:07:58] Bob: And he says to you, I own most of your property.
And, and what, what did you say to him?
[00:08:03] Janet Grosz: I was really, I really got upset.
And I said, “That was not what we agreed upon,” you know.
[00:08:18] Bob: “It’s true,” her friend says.
So she starts trying to figure out what kind of paperwork she can file to get her land back.
But John Hope files paperwork first.
A sheriff comes onto Janet’s property and puts her on notice.
I’m not allowed to go on his side of the property.
I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
[00:08:54] Bob: Wow.
[00:08:54] Janet Grosz: “Otherwise you’ll get arrested.”
[00:08:56] Bob: Wow.
[00:09:01] Janet Grosz: Yeah.
I’d looked at the website.
I did some research on this Impossible Roads Foundation, and it all looked legitimate.
[00:09:48] Bob: But as Dan looks into the transaction more, red flags keep going off.
It was not land that was ever zoned for veterans homes.
[00:10:12] Bob: you’re able to’t just plop little homes on a property.
[00:10:38] Bob: But John Hope was not giving up without a fight.
And don’t allow this to subdivide this property in this fashion."
And the county agreed.
And they put his tool on hold.
Then came conflicts between my client and, and this fellow.
She is now no longer able to go near her outbuilding.
And that’s what we did.
We asked for a hearing.
While preparing for the hearing, Dan has a breakthrough.
And it’s pretty rare that you could get to be in your 30s and have no digital history.
And plugging those into our search criteria, we found absolutely nothing about him.
And things get really strange.
So she starts going into his websites and the, the people that claims he benefitted in the past.
She starts calling them.
We just supplied materials.
We didn’t build any homes."
[00:13:54] Bob: So Janet’s lawyer tucks away this information for a while.
And the judge said, “Yes, bring some identification with you when you come back.”
He comes back at 2 o’clock.
No ID, and he can’t talk in a loud enough voice for anybody for hear.
And the hearing just went nowhere, and the judge denied the restraining order.
(laugh)
[00:14:22] Bob: John Hope won’t provide any ID.
And that makes for an easy ruling for the judge.
So Janet at least is no longer under threat of arrest if she moves around her property.
But who is John Hope?
He goes to the police with his research.
But I don’t think they believed her.
I think that’s their initial impression of her.
[00:15:11] Bob: That’s an understatement.
His exhaustive research culminates in an affidavit for a probable cause determination.
It’s 28 pages of interviews and allegations about the man who calls himself John Hope.
The affidavit says Impossible Roads is indeed a registered charity in Washington State.
And there’s an address for the foundation in Bellingham, Washington, right up near the Canadian border.
Picher finds the owner of the home and contacts her.
Immediately she knows why he’s calling.
He writes, “She told me the following.
She knew the homeless, nameless man needed a name, so she invented one.”
But the organization does help him move his belongings from a storage unit in Arizona.
Eventually Hope gets healthy enough to do odd jobs at the local dockyard, the Port of Bellingham.
And ambitious enough to say he wants to create a nonprofit to help others, the Impossible Roads Foundation.
The witness says the homeless man is very creative.
When in reality, they are not."
Over time this witness learns the homeless man’s prior name, Tyrone Powell.
And that is the breakthrough that the sheriff’s officer needs.
All of them were eventually dissolved for inactivity.
There are several brushes with the law, both as an alleged victim and an alleged fraudster.
Cops say he altered a car VIN to avoid paying a debt, for example.
After another unpaid debt he filed a police report saying his identity had been stolen.
Sheriff Picher ends up going to Bellingham to interview a set of people who say they knew John Hope.
This time, he claims Janet had stolen $9,000 worth of tools and cut off his electricity.
But it too is dropped on appeal and Hope moves to the local hotel.
But that is not the end of the story for Janet.
She still has to pursue a civil case to get her deed restored.
I bring a motion for summary judgment.
And asked the judge to just grant us a judgment without going to trial.
And it’s such a relief.
[00:21:01] Bob: What was it like when the judge gave you your property back?
There is um, justice, there is hope.
[00:21:36] Bob: What should people learn from a story like this?
[00:21:40] Dan McKinney: Get professional assistance before you do anything of consequence like this.
First, it’s not a legal lot of record.
I would have been able to tell her that.
And second, this property is not zoned for veterans homes.
He’ll never be allowed to have veterans homes here.
[00:22:05] Dan McKinney: Yes.
It would have been.
[00:22:51] Laurie Styron: Well it’s a tale as old as time, isn’t it?
A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
[00:23:41] Bob: Why are empathetic people targeted?
[00:24:42] Bob: Why are veterans' causes so commonly used this way?
Because a scammer can play on your empathy, um, but they can also play on your patriotism.
And so it really can tug at the heart strings and also play on our patriotism.
[00:25:40] Laurie Styron: We think about these things in a binary way.
And so, our compassion can be unlimited, but our resources are not.
[00:26:24] Bob: Our compassion can be unlimited, but our resources are not.
I like that a lot.
[00:26:29] Bob: And even when being generous, Laurie says, don’t take any shortcuts.
[00:26:56] Laurie Styron: Exactly.
Or if you get a charity solicitation in the mail, its the same thing.
you better take the information down and do your research before you commit to making a donation.
[00:27:59] Bob: Yeah, don’t skip any steps.
I like that a lot.
[00:28:34] Bob: Betrayed, that sounds like the word, betrayed.
[00:29:06] Janet Grosz: Well, I’m just trusting God from learning from this experience.
I’m just doing this to help other seniors, so c’mon, don’t trust everybody.
You could trust, but verify.
Uh, check that you’re doing the right thing.
You know, trust but verify.
Call the AARP Fraud Watch data pipe Helpline at 877-908-3360.
Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next.
Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
For AARP’s The Perfect Scam, I’m Bob Sullivan.
END OF TRANSCRIPT
Recently widowed, Janet has dedicated her life to helping others.
The founder, John Paul Hope, is disabled and ill with terminal cancer.
After the deed is signed, she realizes he has actually taken 30 acres!
Janet comes to the terrible realization that John Paul Hope is not who he says he is.
