All posts by Dagney Taggart

faq

Ken Johnson Social Media Lies Exposed Again

The con man of Galt’s Gulch Chile, Ken Johnson, was to appear in Chilean court on December 12 2016 for a hearing on the felony cases against him Future convicted felon Ken Johnsonfor defrauding 73 families of $10.45 million dollars. Johnson, however, as was no surprise to us GGC victims, didn’t show up in court. His lawyer claimed that he was called away to the USA due to his parents failing health. The ambulance chaser showed as evidence Johnson’s boarding pass for a flight to Mendoza, Argentina. Reportedly, everyone in the court room knew his excuse was a lie, since Mendoza has no flights to the USA. Despite the obvious contempt Johnson showed the Chilean court, the judge continued the hearing until January.

Here’s a link to the Curacaví El Mauco article about the hearing.

Ken Johnson’s Fraud Case to Be Made Official Imminently

Ken Johnson is currently a delincuente prófugo, unofficially as of yet, but the official status is coming. Wherever his is, we’re sure he hasn’t found a new scam and is getting bored, because he’s been posting on a libertarian forum again, attacking Jeff Berwick and lying about GGC.

His latest Facebook post, when Ken Johnson Pinocchiodeconstructed (below), is somewhat informative, at least to demonstrate his perfidy. As always, Johnson takes a tiny bit of truth, wraps it in compounding lies and spews it out everywhere he can, like the psychopath he is. His tactics are always the same: accuse everyone else of his very crimes and sit back to watch them scramble to defend themselves.

The trouble for Johnson is, we aren’t scrambling. Besides the fact that he’s so transparent, no one is listening to this grifter, anyway. He’s like a stray dog howling to the moon. The people with the power to put him behind bars pay no attention to his howling.

Johnson’s Facebook Post Deconstructed

Li’l Kenny Fraudster wrote: On December 12, 2016, Galt’s Gulch Chile was violently raided by 20 armed men, lead by Mario Del Real, a Chilean real estate swindler and associate of convicted felon EJ Lashlee, Josh Kirley, Thomas Baker, and Catharine Cuthbert. Del Real, and his cohorts, shot at and physically attacked the workers of GGC.

FACT: None of the innocent people libeled in this mendacious sentence have any relations with Mario Del Real. Del Real is Ken Johnson’s partner in crime, and conned Johnson out of his stock in the real estate holding company for Galt’s Gulch Chile, Inmobiliaria Galt’s Gulch, proving the ancient adage there is no honor among thieves. From August 2014 till January 2015, Mario Del Real tried to extort the GGC investors no fewer than five times. We repeat, we have no relations with Mario Del Real. Grifter Ken Johnson does.

LKF: After tying up some of the workers, Del Real then threw all of them into the street and ransacked their homes (our workers have lived on GGC land for many years), along with the buildings, farm, and land, of GGC. Some of these crimes were caught on video by witnesses, and have recently been presented as evidence of these crimes. The local prosecutor has recently been removed from involvement with these crimes and we hope to make sincere progress with the formalization and convictions of those mentioned above for a long list of crimes against GGC and our honest clients.

FACT: The local prosecutor, Cristian Cáceres, has not been removed from the fraud and other felony cases against Ken Johnson and Mario Del Real. He has been joined in that position by a prosecutor from the complex crimes prosecutor’s department– analogous to white collar crime–for the country of Chile. In other words, the government of Chile has added to its investigation and prosecution of the Galt’s Gulch Chile scam perpetrated by Ken Johnson and Marion Del Real.

LKF: This violent entry and attack of December 2016 was nearly identical to a violent entry and attack carried out on GGC property in October 2014, by Del Real, Kirley, Baker, Lashlee and Cuthbert. Shortly after their violent attack in October 2014, they retained hostile possession of GGC’s farm, buildings and land.

FACT: This is an abject lie. The people named committed no violent act of any kind. The truth is that Johnson, realizing the jig was up on his fraud, fled the farm to avoid the investors out of fear. Johnson voluntarily abandoned Galt’s Gulch Chile and the farming operations in November 2014.

However, in April 2015, Johnson hired four armed thugs to terrorize the investors’ employees at gun point and remove them from the property. This raid by Del Real is therefore reminiscent of Johnson’s violent raid of the farm 20 months earlier.

LKF: While holding hostile possession of GGC’s land, Kirley and Del Real entered into a private arbitration process with one another in March 2015 in order to obtain a favorable financial ruling for Kirley, so that Kirley and Del Real could then attempt to force the sale of GGC’s land assets to pay Kirley’s and Del Real’s arbitration ruling, and to attempt to purchase GGC’s assets at auction.

FACT: All arbitrations are private. There is nothing nefarious about that. Josh Kirley’s contract with GGC stipulates that disputes are to be resolved via the arbitration center at the Santiago Chamber of Commerce. The arbitration was completely lawful.

FACT: Kirley has no relations with Del Real and has met him only once through Ken Johnson at the GGC farm.

FACT: Josh Kirley’s arbitration was to recoup his “investment” in GGC since the project is a fraud. The only assets that GGC holds are the two parcels near Curacaví. To pay Kirley’s refund, the parcels will be auctioned, as is required by law. Again, there is nothing nefarious about this. To the contrary, this is how the system is supposed to work. Johnson is 100% at fault in this situation since he broke his contract with Kirley.

LKF: These hostile actions in October 2014 occurred three weeks after GGC obtained subdivision approvals and shortly before GGC was to complete payments on its land and water assets.

FACT: Johnson never obtained the full subdivision approval for the GGC project. He received a preliminary approval for the subdivision of the orchards as orchards, ie, the purpose of the land had not changed. Further approvals are required by the Metropolitan Region of Santiago for which Johnson has never applied.

Yeah, About Those Contracts…

LKF: 80% of GGC’s contracts with clients would have been completed in late 2014 had these parties not sabotaged the project in a violent and seemingly criminal manner.

FACT: This is a completely misleading statement. Johnson is referring to the contracts signed by investors who bought shares of a farming operation, Agricola Galt’s Gulch. Nearly everyone who bought into Agricola signed three contracts, making the number of contracts mentioned here appear to represent the interests of the vast majority of investors. In fact, only 16 of the 73 investors held contracts with Agricola, totaling just under $1 million, or less than 10% of the funds investors poured into the GGC fraud.

Five other investors signed contracts to buy 25 acre orchards, but their contracts included residential lots, for which there are no approvals, and loans to GGC. The same is true for several of the Agricola investors, that they hold contracts for residential lots and/or loans. Combining the two groups of investors, fewer than 30% of GGC investors could have had maybe one of their multiple contracts satisfied, if  the subdivision approval that Johnson obtained for GGC were completed. Again, the approval was not completed.

There was simply no way Johnson could ever make good on any of the contracts outstanding. The project was stalled due to Johnson being defrauded by Mario Del Real, Johnson’s mismanagement, his embezzlement and his inability to find more suckers. See our post, “Why Did GGC Fail So Spectacularly, So Fast” for the details. The GGC fraud collapsed by June 2014, while the investors took over the property in November 2014.

LKF: Kirley, Baker, Cuthbert, Lashlee and anarchist conman, Jeff Berwick, have been in collusion with Mario Del Real since early 2014, and possibly late 2013.

FACT: Kirley, Baker and Lashlee met Mario Del Real in mid or late 2014 and each met him only once. Cuthbert has never met Mario Del Real. None of the people mentioned have any relationship or dealings with Mario Del Real of any kind. This is utter fiction. Jeff Berwick has never met Del Real, and didn’t even know who he was or what is role in the GGC fraud was until some time in 2016.

On the other hand, Johnson brought Del Real into GGC affairs and is currently colluding with him to thwart investors efforts at restitution.

LKF: They have zero care about the ideas and beliefs about organic farming, peaceful living and other positive aspects of GGC.

FACT: How would Johnson know any of this about us? He doesn’t know us.

Peaceful living? Positive aspects of GGC? Being an affinity fraud, there are no positive aspects of GGC.

There is no organic farming. Certifications were never completed and the promised farming project was always a total fiction.

More importantly, no one would ever refer to Johnson as peaceful. He has physically attacked his co-workers and employees on several occasions. He also repeatedly held his Chilean employees at gun point while interrogating them and while filming videos. We hardly consider that peaceful.

LKF: We intend to win in the courts against these highly unethical and dishonest people and we intend to complete GGC for our honest clients, without this corrupt group that has aided Mario Del Real and Pamela Del Real with a long list of crimes, dating back longer than three years now.

Good luck with that, Li’l Kenny Fraudster. You can’t win in court when the documentary evidence and eye witness testimony is piled sky high against you.

Coward Ken Johnson new logo

Btw, Johnson also posted his typical, crazy mendacious screeds at Liberty.me. He told a new lie there, that he has never turned anyone into government agencies. He was trying to make himself appear to have libertarian principles to gain sympathy on that forum.

The facts are just the opposite. Johnson has:

  • harassed former employees multiple times by submitting complaints to the police and the PDI (Chilean equivalent to the FBI.)
  • reported Berwick and one of his friends to the Canadian authorities.
  • repeatedly reported John Cobin to the Chilean authorities and even sued Cobin and Cristian Jorquera, the owner of the local newspaper, for libel. He also paid two law firms to explore suing Cobin for breach of a non-compete agreement. Paying lawyers to pursue Cobin wasted nearly $100,000 of investor money.
  • reported Mario Del Real to the PDI and has two felony cases against him in the Chilean courts.

We have the documentary evidence for all his actions above, including some of Johnson’s own videos. !?!

One Last Note on the Criminal Cases

The January hearing to make the felony cases against Johnson official was again postponed to give the  new prosecutor assigned to the GGC fraud case time to prepare his team. We will announce the new hearing date when this information is available.

faq, Legal status

Galt’s Gulch Chile Investors Win Another Legal Battle

Turn of the Screw: GGC Recovery Wins Appeal, Turns Up Heat on Con Man Ken Johnson

Last year, the Galt’s Gulch Chile Recovery Team, using Josh Kirley’s contract, entered into arbitration with Inmobiliaria Galt’s Gulch to receive restitution and penalties based on its inability to fulfill its obligations.

On May 18 2016, the arbitrator found in favor of The GGC Legal Fund and awarded us a $1.3 million claim on Inmobiliaria Galt’s Gulch. Inmobiliaria GG then appealed the decision.  The basis for the appeal was that the arbitrator showed gross negligence and immoral behavior with his decision, a ridiculous claim but the only avenue open for an appeal.

Mario Del Real

Chilean Swindler Mario Del Real
Is that a smile, or a grimace?

On November 17, the Appeals Court published their decision. The justices rejected Mario Del Real’s challenge to arbitrator Walker’s finding in favor of the legal fund. The award of $1.3 million in restitution and penalties stands.

We can’t overstate the importance of this decision. Not only will we have a substantial lien on the GGC properties, but the basis for the arbitration award and the subsequent Appeals Court ruling will bolster our criminal cases.

In his appeal, Mario Del Real representing GGC stated that former developer Ken Johnson was not the legal representative of Inmobiliaria Galt’s Gulch when he signed Josh’s contract and accepted his funds. Both the arbitrator and now the Appeals Court  reject that this invalidated our claim of restitution. The decision reaffirms that as an agent of Inmobiliaria Galt’s Gulch, Johnson represented the company.

In addition to this arbitration, The GGC Legal Fund has a criminal case against Johnson based on Josh’s contract. We are accusing Johnson of a felony violation of the Urbanism and Construction Act when he did not purchase a bond or insurance to protect Josh’s investment as required by law. Johnson will likely claim that he was not the company legal representative and therefore not responsible for buying the insurance or bond. That defense was just blown out of the water.

Here is the link to the text of the Appeals Court decision. Note the final sentence:

“Por estas razones, se rechaza el recurso de queja interpuesto en lo principal de fojas 51, con costas, por estimarse que no hubo razón plausible para deducirlo.”

Translation: For these reasons, the appeal is rejected, with costs, because it is considered that there was no plausible reason to submit it. [Emphasis added.–Ed.]

In other words, the appeal was harassment, pure and simple.

GGC Recovery Team logo

Btw, Johnson has been spending his time lately posting all over social media that we lost our arbitration, and that all our criminal cases have been thrown out of court. Yet again, Li’l Kenny Fraudster proves to be an abject liar.

We are wondering when the “libertarian community,” who often claims to hate liars, will recognize this fraud for what he is and support the GGC Recovery Team. We’re not holding our breath.

dirty tricks, Johnson's Lies

Galt’s Gulch Chile SA: In the Beginning There Was Fraud

Actually, there was fraud the whole time at Galt’s Gulch Chile, beginning, middle and end. But in this post, we’re focused on the kj jailbirdbeginning, because future convicted felon Johnson has yet again taken to social media (and probably to drink), posting this tidbit:

“So now I [Johnson] ‘promptly defrauded’ three GGC partners? Ok. You must be talking about the very bitter expat in hiding, John Cobin, his business partner, German Eyzaguirre, your close ally, Jeff Berwick. Apparently, you haven’t seen the signed and notarised (sic) dissolution of all business relations amongst (sic) these “partners”? Or maybe you have, and simply are choosing to misinform people about it? I go with the latter.”

When Is a Partner Not a Partner?

We have written about this episode before in our blog post, “When Is a Partner Not a Partner?” but we didn’t go into the specifics of how the partnership between Johnson, Jeff Berwick, John Cobin and Germán Eyzaguirre legally ended.

Recall that a company was established named Galt’s Gulch Chile SA, (see GGC SA constitution part 1 and part 2) and that Berwick and Johnson had agreed to pay their junior partners $250,000. As Johnson tells the story, after the partners had a dispute that he blames on Cobin, they all dissolved the entity, GGC SA, in November 2012, just before the first disastrous real estate purchase of El Peñon.

house at el penonThe house at El Peñon.

The truth is that Johnson, not willing to pay up, executed a plot to create bad blood and bust up the partnership. That he accomplished with ease, being his typical thoroughly objectionable and mendacious self. His next step was to dissolve the SA corporation.

However, he couldn’t get Cobin’s cooperation. Cobin refused to sign any dissolution agreement that didn’t include paying him and Eyzaguirre that $250,000, and since Johnson never paid, the dissolution didn’t occur at that time.

What Does Cobin Say?

According to John Cobin:

“The dissolution he refers to, might have been a non-compete covenant we signed (against my better judgment and only upon Germán’s incessant urging), which was only to become effective once he paid us, which he never did. So, that document was void or at least useless. There was no consideration ever given in exchange for that covenant not to compete. I do not remember the date. Germán [Eyzaguirre] was certain that if we moved in good faith and signed, it would be enough for Johnson to come to the table himself. He never did. Like everything else, Johnson lied and then took without upholding his end.” [Emphasis added–Ed.]

Independently of Cobin’s Ken Pinocchio Johnsontestimony, we knew that GGC SA didn’t meet it’s legal demise in November 2012 as Johnson always claims. How? Because we have documents that say so. See this email from GGC’s lawyer, Andres Chirgwin, to Johnson dated March 27 2013, especially this highlighted sentence:

“Our potential problems arise from the fact that Galt’s Gulch Chile SA is still in existence and has a shareholders’ agreement that it (sic) is valid and in force.”

Later on, there was a series of panicked emails that flew between Johnson, Chirgwin, and Berwick in the period leading up to the second disastrous real estate purchase in August 2013. Chirgwin was concerned that if  GGC SA weren’t dissolved, Cobin and Eyzaguirre would bring legal action against the successor GGC entity, Inmobiliaria Galt’s Gulch SA, once the entity actually owned something of value.

Smoking Gun

Chirgwin advised Johnson that as majority shareholders (70%) Berwick and he could dissolve the corporation without the consent and participation of their junior partners. Berwick and Johnson were essentially out voting them. This was accomplished on August 30 2013. Here is the document with Berwick’s signature.

Liquidation of Galt’s Gulch Chile SA

And here is the smoking gun email from Johnson to Berwick about that document:

Johnson’s Email to Berwick about dissolving Galt’s Gulch Chile SA

Clearly, since a dissolution document was needed and was executed without the junior partners on August 30 2013, there was no dissolution of GGC SA executed previously with the junior partners, as Johnson falsely claims.

What Does This All Mean?

Johnson always says that he’s just a misunderstood guy who trusted everyone too much and was taken advantage of at every turn. With our two posts, “When Is a Partner Not a Partner” and “Galt’s Gulch Chile: In the Beginning There Was Fraud,” we have put the lie to that tall tale.

Johnson was a con man from GGC’s very beginning, even with his first act as “managing partner,” which was theft. He defrauded his partners as we described. With them out of the way and using investor money sans a dime of his own, he bought El Peñon and later El Lepe by and for himself. Neither Berwick, nor the employees nor the investors knew this, that he was the sole owner of GGC, or how it had happened.

How’s that for a material omission?

Johnson has to continually lie about defrauding his partners to keep up the appearance that he’s just a colossal screw up rather than an abject fraud. Remember, he has three criminal cases against him progressing through the legal system in Chile.

One of the ways he does this is by calling himself “the founding partner of GGC,” meaning there is no other. Without partners, he hasn’t defrauded anyone of their ownership.

Too bad for Li’l Kenny we have documents and eye witnesses.

Social Media Blues

Here, we yet again dispel a Li’l Kenny Fraudster lie with documentation supported by an eye witness interview. Our recounting of the first Galt’s Gulch Chile fraud that Johnson perpetrated on his original partners stands.

We wonder exactly how many of Johnson lies we have to expose this way before the social media crowd figures out that Li’l Kenny Fraudster is a congenital liar and acts accordingly. Haven’t they ever heard the new old saying, “Don’t feed the troll”? *Ugh.*

Coward Johnson's new logo
Btw, about Johnson’s crack that Cobin is in hiding, John had this to say:

“I did not know that I was ‘in hiding.’ Bitter? Being unemployed for 31 months has been pretty debilitating and losing so much of my own money in trying to start our libertarian resilient community, but those things are hardly as grievous to me as having seen Richard, Frank, Jack and Steve lose money. They are all very good people, with good objectives, that ended up getting hurt. I know that Johnson enjoys seeing that happen. Nevertheless, no one can live with bitterness. I push on without it, as I hope that they do, and will help anyone I can that has a shot of imprisoning Johnson and recovering losses.”

And to those sentiments we add, “Ever onward.”

dirty tricks, faq

The 2nd Most Asked Question about Galt’s Gulch Chile

“I have nothing to hide… [sic] that is why I returned to GGC to oust the ‘rescue’ team criminals from the GGC property…” Future convicted felon Ken Johnson on Facebook.

“But if he is just a conman, why not run off with the money? And why waste so many man hours, and go through the stress of cleaning, planting and transforming the property?” –Joshua Harris.

Workaway “volunteer” Joshua Harris told us that he worked for 2-3 weeks at the Galt’s Gulch Chile farm in exchange for room and board. This backpacker, young and inexperienced, can’t understand why future convicted felon Ken Johnson didn’t just, as they say, take a powder with our bucks. This is the second most common question we get about the GGC affinity fraud.

In fact, FCF Johnson did run off with his tail between his legs and kj jailbirdloot in hand when two of the GGC Recovery members went to the farm to negotiate his departure. Reports were that after he voluntarily abandoned the farm, he fled to Paraguay. Wherever he went, he stole upwards of $630,000 in the final months of his tenure. This data were gleaned from investors’ wire receipts and doesn’t include any lemon sales he pocketed on his way out the gate.

Of course Johnson’s a drinker and gambler so some or even much of the money may have been scattered to the winds before he ran off, but he must have had enough to start over. It would have been difficult for us to find him, and even if we had, more difficult to drag him back to justice. Yet he returned. Everyone wants to know why.

Psychopaths Have Their Reasons

We reckon on two reasons. First, being a sadistic psychopath, Johnson wanted to get us investors back for daring to challenge him and take “his farm.” After all, he had stolen it, fair and square.

If Johnson were an honest man, he would have returned by simply walking onto the property and moving back into the house. We would have done nothing but ignore him.

That wouldn’t have worked for Johnson, though. To him, it was unthinkable to be ignored and irrelevant in his former kingdom. No, Johnson had to stick a red hot poker in our collective eye. He hired armed thugs to terrorize and threaten our employees, then re-installed his lackeys to run the operation.

The funny thing is we didn’t care as much as he thought we would. We investors were being bled dry paying the expenses of a money-losing farm. We were glad to be relieved of that pressure. Also, we then knew where to find him. So much for the red hot poker.

THE Reason: Play Acting to Stay out of Jail

The second reason, and the more important one, that we immediately deduced and announced to the investors was that returning to the farm was his only defense against our overwhelming criminal charges against him.

The quotation at the beginning of this post says it all. Johnson has to act as if he has nothing to hide. The only way to do that was to come back to the farm. His lawyer told him that his only hope of beating our open and shut case of defrauding 73 families of over $10 million is to pretend he’s innocent. So he returned and eventually cooked up the scheme of Li'l Kenny's handcuffshoodwinking young, gullible Workaway volunteers to renovate the buildings and do all the labor on the farm. They even grow the food for the next shift of  backpackers. Johnson’s out-of-pocket is minimal and he keeps the lemon sales that these dupes provide. He can then proclaim to the world, “See, I only want to build a community and give the GGC clients their due.”

Just a fly or two in that ointment. First, his current Workaway scam does not undo his past actions which are more than obviously fraudulent–unenforceable contracts, fraudulent marketing materials, no insurance or bond to protect investors, non-payment of vendors and employees of over $200,000, wire fraud, money laundering, etc, etc. Note that intent is not required to convict on  many of these crimes.

Second, unlike gullible backpackers, prosecutors and judges have seen it all before. Li’l Kenny Fraudster can play at being a stand-up guy all he wants. It really doesn’t matter. That orange jumpsuit will be waiting for him no matter what tricks he tries to pull off.

Coward Johnson's new logo
Btw, there was immediate confirmation that our deduction about Li’l Kenny Fraudster’s motive was correct. When we sent our email blast to all investors exposing his desperate strategy to beat the rap,  within minutes we received a rather crude and threatening email in return. We had hit the bull’s eye. Claro.

And what’s the most frequently asked question? Well, the obvious: How could you have been so stupid to invest in GGC?

We wish we knew…

dirty tricks, Johnson's Lies

Galt’s Gulch Chile Con Man’s Go-To Tactic–Projection

Johnson Revives his Bitter Feud with
Cobin and Freedom Orchard

Clearly, future convicted felon Johnson is getting bored with bossing around backpackers. Facebook is infinitely more enticing. Well, fantasy is always more alluring than work, ain’t it Li’l Kenny.

John Cobin

One of Johnson’s perennial whipping boys is John Cobin (right), his erstwhile partner in a former incarnation of Johnson’s Galt’s Gulch Chile affinity fraud. We discussed this episode in our blog post “When is a Partner not a Partner.”

Soon after Johnson sabotaged the first GGC partnership to part ways with Cobin–we suspect deliberately to save himself the $250,000 fee he and Berwick had agreed to pay–Cobin began his own libertarian real estate project right next door to GGC called Freedom Orchard. So began a feud between the two that rages to this day, each one calling the other a scam artist.

In fact, we have had reports from investors who were wise enough to eschew GGC, saying that one of their main reasons was Johnson’s trash talking about Cobin and Freedom Orchard. He spoke such venom, bordering on all-consuming hatred, that just a peak into such a level of psychopathy was quite enough for them. Phrases such as, “We’ll destroy Freedom Orchard…” come to mind. Clearly, Johnson forgot one of the primary lessons of Salesmanship 101: do not speak ill of your competitors.

We had and have no dog in that fight but were bitten nevertheless when Johnson spent many tens of thousand of dollars, $30,000 in one month alone, in GGC investor money for lawyers, first paying two firms to research suing Cobin for violating an unenforceable non-compete agreement, and later suing Cobin for libel. Johnson likely could not have been successful in the libel case because Johnson is, of course, everything Cobin said he is–a liar and a scoundrel–and far worse. However, Johnson, after pissing away our money, dropped the case, so we’ll never know.

We review this sordid history because FCF Johnson revived the feud on Facebook, the current forum from which he excretes his libel and lies. Recently, Johnson accused Freedom Orchard of fraud for selling lots on a property that Freedom Orchard didn’t own.

This charge piqued our interest. We know none of the particulars of Freedom Orchard and can’t say who did what to whom (!), nor do we care. However, with this accusation we find a perfect example of one of Johnson fav tactics that armchair psychologists refer to as projection.

Yes, friends, Johnson did exactly the same thing–he sold lots on a property GGC did not own.

Johnson signed a purchase and sale agreement for the Lepe property on May 13 2013. He and the seller, Guillermo Ramirez, signed closing documents on Aug 14 2013. Between those two dates, Johnson sold lots to 14 GGC investors for over $1.6M when GGC did not own the property.

Johnson also criticized Cobin and partners for not being able to make the payments on the land they had under contract. Funny he should mention that because Johnson couldn’t make the payments to Ramirez as agreed, either. Not only was Johnson unable to pay the final installment for Lepe, he was unable to make any of the payments on the property on time.

Now, that’s projection for you.

The Lepe closing document included a nine month payment schedule. As far as we know, Johnson didn’t disclose that to these 14 investors. He also didn’t reveal it to his sales staff, instead telling them that the property was free and clear.

From the August 14th closing through December Johnson was forced to pay $600,000 of investor money in penalties for three missed payments.  Then, facing even more penalties and getting desperate, Johnson defrauded an investor for $975,000 by having Ramirez write a letter saying that all payments were made in full with the exception of the final payment due in April 2014. This was a lying scheme the two concocted to get at that money, since the investor had made his purchase conditional upon all installments being paid through December 2013.

Now, many business people get in over their heads and can’t make payments. And our lawyer has told us it is legal to sell land held with only a purchase and sale agreement or with a series of payments due, or without the required zoning. So far, you might think that this is simply bkj jailbirdad management, and maybe that’s true for Freedom Orchard, we certainly don’t know. But we do know about Galt’s Gulch Chile and if you think that of Li’l Kenny Fraudster, of course you’d be wrong.

In Chile, to sell lots before they are lots, certain requirements detailed in the Urbanism and Construction Act have to be met. For example, the seller must buy a bond or insurance to protect the investor. Johnson, however, did not meet that requirement. That is a felony punishable by up to five years in jail.

Sadly for us investors, Johnson can be caught for only one felony for this particular crime. That is because the contracts Johnson used are not enforceable in Chile. Only one investor who had his lawyer write his contract, has an enforceable contract. Read more about Johnson fraudulent contracts in our blog post “We Should Change the Name to No-contracts-ville Chile.”

Johnson tops his mendacious screed with the biggest lie of all: that he doesn’t owe anyone money as witnessed by the lack of legal Ken Pinocchio Johnsonaction against him. Oh really? He has two lawyers suing him for $34,188 and $54,000. He also owed $71,281 to Chilean vendors, and nearly $100,000 to ex-employees.

For example, Johnson’s administrative assistant from El Salvador is owed $8,132.53 which is a chunk of change for a Salvadoran. She ended up homeless around Christmas 2014. We investors put her up at the farm for two weeks and then bought her a plane ticket back to her family.

Johnson also didn’t pay his farm workers for months, salaries or benefits. They took to grabbing the lemon sales money before he could get it. We caught them up when we took over the farm. Johnson was still not paying the Chilean farm workers after he returned and has 13 cases against him with the pension administrator (see here and here).

And of course he owes all of us investors money, $10 million, in fact. (Apparently Jerry Folta hasn’t demanded a refund.)

The only number lower than Johnson’s IQ is his credit score. So for him to say he doesn’t owe anyone money is a truly fitting end to this example of his psychopathic projection.

Coward Johnson's new logo

Btw, we’ve discussed Li’l Kenny Fraudster projection before. Check out our other posts where we exposed his Paraguay passport scam, his trashing of the Lepe property, his cutting down of protected trees… we could go on and on.

If there’s one thing you can be sure of when dealing with the Fraudster: whatever he’s accusing others of doing, he’s guilty of it himself.

faq

Galt’s Gulch Chile Con Man Promises Documents–Again

Donnelly Challenges Berwick about GGC.
Future Convicted Felon Johnson Gets
into the Act.

Future convicted felon Johnson has set about flapping his yap yet again. This time it’s on George Donnelly’s FB page here and here. Yes, Li’l Kenny has found what he thinks is another sucker. The last time it backfired on him. See our blog post, The Cantwell Interview: Johnson Cornered.

Donnelly (above), donning the mantle of truth seeker, is on a crusade to prove that Jeff Berwick was a scammer with regards to GGC. Of course, Li’l Kenny Fraudster had to get into the act.

Donnelly the truth seeker? Well, not really. He said he’ll only investigate the Galt’s Gulch Chile Affinity Fraud if both Berwick and Johnson co-operate with him. Really? Since when has a criminal like Johnson ever co-operated with an investigation? In other words, this looks like nothing more than click bait.

We are of two minds about this. Of course we support anyone who wants to investigate GGC since we know that they will find that Li’l Kenny is a thief and liar. However, we are always against the internecine wars of libertarians. There are more important battles to fight against the powers that shouldn’t be. Investigation into Galt’s Gulch Chile does not have to be this way.

Be that as it may, Donnelly gave the Fraudster a podium from which he could displaying his modus operandi of lies and character assassination. Anyone with a whit of sense can tell whom (!) to believe by reading the endless, nauseating posts spewed out by this limacine con artist who is living off us investors still, as he takes in money from the farm that should be ours. Oh, but he assures us he’s too busy building a community to spend time on social media. Yeah, right.

Here are several examples of FCF Johnson’s ubiquitous lies.Ken Pinocchio Johnson

Li’l Kenny wrote, ” We’re presently winning all legal battles here in Chile, as those Berwick is aligned with continue to work with the Chilean real estate swindler…”

Fact: Johnson hasn’t won a single “battle.” All our cases and civil actions are moving forward. For instance, we recently won our arbitration for $1.3 million for his failure to uphold Josh Kirley’s contract. For proof check our time line post for May 18 2016 here (scroll down to the end). He’s calling that a win? If so, I hope he wins all his cases.

Further, we have absolutely nothing to do with the Chilean real estate swindler, Mario Del Real. At one point, we had to get Del Real’s permission to run the farm, but that was the extent of our association with him. In fact, we have a fraud case against him and his family, and an embezzlement case against his daughter in process right now. Again, check our time line for the facts and this blog post, Rio Colorado: The Con Man Got Conned. Johnson is the only one aligned with Del Real.

Li’l Kenny wrote, “It’s been a miserable experience seeing greedy cowards destroy what I was close to completing here, along with several other similar projects.”

Fact: GGC was never close to completion. It never got off the ground. There was no productive work done to turn the farm into a residential real estate development. NONE. All Johnson did was to piggy back on Berwick’s marketing and hustle unsuspecting libertarians to part with their money. And other similar projects? Where???

Li’l Kenny wrote, “The courts in Chile have dismissed all of the frivolous criminal actions against me.”

Fact. We have three criminal cases against Johnson, and none have been dismissed. All are going forward as we write.

Li’l Kenny wrote, “We were also busy this past year repairing and replacing all that the GGC “rescue” team stole, trafficked and destroyed here.”

Fact: We stole NOTHING. We destroyed NOTHING. As we documented in our blog posts, the “damage” to the property was all fictional. See:

Li’l Kenny Lies about “Damages” at GGC Farm
The Shacks Oops–We Mean Haciendas–at GGC

Also, the chattels we sold were owned by GGC, not Johnson and therefore legally under our control and management at the time of sale. The money raised was paid to the farm workers for their salaries and benefits, something that Johnson didn’t do. There are 13 cases against Johnson with the Chilean pension administration for failing to pay the benefits of his workers. Go here and here for a list of these complaints.

We could go on, but you get the picture. There is not one sentence that comes out of Li’l Kenny Fraudster’s mouth that’s true. Not one.

Just as he promised Cantwell that he’d supply documents, Li’l Kenny Fraudster has supposedly committed to delivering documents to Donnelly. Hey, George, don’t hold your breath.

Coward Johnson's new logo

Where did all the money go, Johnson? The accounting.
Who owns what at GGC? The legal documents.

We’ve been demanding this information since September 2014. Johnson claimed he wanted to be transparent and give us all the information. We’re still waiting two years later.

Btw, Johnson sold almost the entire Lepe house full of furniture and other chattels when he took over the property, yet the accounting for these sales has never been disclosed to the investors. We believe he dealt in cash, kept no records and he pocketed all the proceeds.

But hey, he’s building a community…

Sep 4, 2016–Johnson May Not Be the Only Fraud

Mr. Donnelly, a week after announcing his Truth Campaign, posted this screen cap of a conversation with Jeff Berwick and called off the project. Mr. Donnelly blamed the demise on Jeff, of course. We have a different opinion.

donnelly-berwick-screen-capClick on screen cap to make larger.

The Donnelly Truth Campaign began with Mr. Donnelly saying he would investigate GGC as an independent third party only if Jeff and future convicted felon Johnson cooperated with him, especially providing documents.

In other words, Mr. Donnelly never intended to investigate GGC at all. Bearing in mind that he is a graduate of the University of Chicago–Mr. Donnelly tells us so–consider the following:

  • Mr. Donnelly must have known that he’d never get FCF Johnson’s cooperation. Since when has a journalist gotten cooperation from a con man, especially one with three criminal cases against him pending?
  • Further, Mr. Donnelly must have known that with his taunting and obvious hostility towards Jeff this past week he was driving Jeff toward bailing on this “deal.” Would you want someone professedly biased investigating you?
  •  We contacted Mr. Donnelly to tell him that Jeff had few documents, had been kept in the dark by the paranoid con man FCF Johnson, and that our webpage had many of the documents he would need. Donnelly was wholly uninterested in the GGC documentation we have already made public. Hmm.
  •  FCF Johnson told Mr. Donnelly in an Aug 25 FB exchange that he would not disclose all his information. Also in that exchange, we learned that Donnelly and Johnson have been talking “for months,” yet Johnson still hasn’t cooperated with the Donnelly Truth Campaign. Why didn’t Mr. Donnelly announce that? Why did he only announce Jeff’s backing out?

Common sense says this does not add up. We submit that no one who is sincere, no one who is a true journalist would act this way. This seems little more than an exercise in click baiting, an example of the pestilence of social media.

Btw, we hope that Mr. Donnelly had the INTEGRITY to obtain Jeff’s permission to post the completely out-of-context snippet from what appears to be their private FB chat.

Publicly posting out-of-context, private communications is one of the more despicable practices of our internet age, don’t you agree?

dirty tricks, Johnson's Lies

Latest Galt’s Gulch Chile Scam–Free 1st-World Labor

We’re often asked the question, “What’s future convicted felon (FCF) Johnson doing now that the Galt’s Gulch Chile scam has been exposed?“

We’ve added a note at the end of this post. The “cultural exchange” website with no conscience is Workaway.info.

He’s got two criminal cases against him in Chile, an FBI investigation into his illegal activities in the US and various civil actions against his previously owned corporations. He’s losing his public relations war Li'l Kenny's an empty balloon.against us investors, having been outed on Panampost.com, Borderless Podcast, The Jet Setter Show and Christopher Cantwell.com. His Facebook page is a pathetic showing. The best he can do is post pix of flowers, and recycle nasty lies about the Recovery Team for both his followers. He’s had over three years of living off GGC investors, and he’s squirreled away upwards of $2 million. Any rational person would have gotten out of Dodge. People always ask us, “Has he left Chile?”

No he hasn’t, because Johnson’s not a rational person. He’s still squatting on the GGC Lepe property, but he hasn’t been idle. He’s been pulling off his next scam.

Cultural Exchange with a Crook

There are quite a few cultural exchange websites, where first-world backpackers can find opportunities to travel on the cheap, working for room and board as they go. Sounds great at first, but the reality can be at odds with what’s promoted, especially if a con man is the host and the website doesn’t do jack to vet their members.

FCF Johnson’s latest scam is posing as the owner of Lepe and convincing backpackers that working for him for free is a Chilean cultural exchange. Here’s a snippet from his host page, essentially an ad for indentured servants:

“Large Organic Farm – A Work In Progress – Fun [Volunteers] – Fun Times – Friendly Animals – Tons to Do!

“We have a beautiful project in central Chile, with a 250-acre organic farm, new organic greenhouse, and endless hills and valleys, nestled in the beautiful coastal mountain range. We can always use help with a long list of items that revolve around maintaining, expanding and improving our large organic farm, our new organic greenhouse (more are planned for construction as we expand the farm an additional 30 hectares), our beautiful organic garden and completion of our remaining guest haciendas…among a few other things. The project has 4,500 hectares of land, with trails for hiking, mountain climbing, horseback riding, etc. There is a small river, swimming holes, etc. a short walk from the haciendas. We have a swimming pool that was recently cleaned by [the cultural exchange volunteers] and is now regularly used by our [volunteer] guests after a day of working on various projects.”

Cultural exchange volunteers sorting lemonsThis photo was taken within the last month by a “cultural exchange volunteer” at GGC. Johnson is on the right, showing a peace sign to the people he’s scamming. Last we knew, SII, the Chilean version of the IRS, was prohibiting Johnson from selling lemons due to his flagrant violations of tax law. We wonder what SII will do when they see this pic.

Idyllic, ain’t it? But wait, there’s more…

“I am fairly new to the [cultural exchange] program, and have had a lot of inquiries. Myself and our full-time workers here have met some really nice people whom [sic] have come to stay with us and are staying with us now. It’s wonderful to meet people with a passion for organic food, thoughtful living and an eagerness to help others who share these passions. [Lay it on thick, Li’l Kenny.] I’m not the most organized person with the [cultural exchange] program so far, but we have some great [volunteers] who have stepped up to help others out when they arrive and also with finding the right things to help out with while here. I’m a believer in ‘the more, the merrier’, and tend to be a bit of a wall flower in larger groups, as I tend to generally just soak up the atmosphere and chill after a long day of dealing with architects, attorneys, produce buyers, errands, and more. I guess most ‘introverts’ can relate to this.”

Let’s translate for our little wall flower. He gets between 20 and 30 suckers at a time to come to Lepe, tells them generally what he wants done and then disappears to drink and watch internet porn while they work. These volunteers even do all the cooking and cleaning, picking the veggies for their meals from the garden that’s the result of the work of previous suckers–oops! we mean volunteers. We guess most introverts can relate. We know all swindlers can.

before and after signs to hide GGC fraudJohnson likely removed the Galt’s Gulch Chile sign at the entrance to the Lepe farm to make sure that the “volunteers” don’t do an internet search and stumble upon his fraud.

We’ll spare you the part about Johnson’s often mentioned plans for an animal sanctuary. It brought tears to our eyes.

In reviewing the exchange’s website, we found that their terms and conditions explicitly state their program is for cultural exchange only:

“[Our website] is NOT set up to provide or replace employment opportunities. We will remove hosts that we deem are not providing cultural exchange or educational possibilities.” [Emphasis theirs.]

At the same time that FCF Johnson has all these ‘volunteers” not only performing farm work, but also apparently renovating the various buildings that he left in a shambles, he has NOT been paying the few Chilean workers who are left at the farm.

Here’s more from Johnson’s ad:

“Any [volunteers] interested in taking on, or creating, a project that fits their life goals, career skills, or dream job, are welcome to talk with me and create a new project for the farm, eco-tourism, hospitality, bio-diversity, marketing, etc. I’m a firm believer in those who put their heart into something being rewarded from and for it…and who knows…maybe you will want to stay and create your own business here, based on taking care of our environment, growing great healthy food, teaching others, etc.”

Rather than a cultural exchange opportunity, this sounds like a con man using every fad currently  in vogue with first world backpacking types to try to sucker these well-meaning people into being his slaves. Unfortunately, it appears to be working.

Clearly, this exchange website did absolutely nothing to vet Johnson, including review his ad which violates their terms and conditions. They certainly didn’t verify his ownership of the farm–since he doesn’t own it, how could they? To be fair, a determined con man, which of course FCF Johnson is, could easily fake documents. Nevertheless, a quick review of his ad should have made them concerned.

The cultural exchange program’s terms and conditions also state that “all the hosts agree to maintain and update information in their account making sure it is accurate and truthful and complies with the laws of their country.” Since Li’l Kenny didn’t hold up this part of the agreement, we thought we’d help him. You know, he is really busy with lawyers and architects. We contacted the website to inform them that:

  • Johnson is a con man who defrauded 73 families of $10.45 million,
  • he’s squatting on the farm, i.e., he’s not the owner,
  • he doesn’t pay his Chilean workers,
  • he didn’t pay his American workers,
  • he doesn’t work with the volunteers, according to his own description and some volunteer comments. They appear left to their own devices,
  • there’s no cultural exchange to speak of with Chileans, and
  • he’s likely violating multiple Chilean laws–immigration, labor, social security, tax, etc.

 They removed his host page. 🙂

Coward Johnson's new logo Btw, we took the liberty of contacting all the other online exchange programs to inform them that FCF Johnson may be applying for host status now that his current situation has ended. They are on the look out for him, including under pseudonyms.

Maybe we should have a contest. Who can correctly predict Li’l Kenny’s next scam? We know there is one. As Professor Harold Hill said to Winthrop in The Music Man, “I always think there’s a band, kid.”

FINAL NOTE: We did not disclose the name of the “cultural exchange” website since we felt that their blocking Johnson was really stand-up and didn’t want them to suffer any negative publicity. That has now changed.

About one month after having his host page taken down, Johnson submitted a new host page under a pseudonym. We were checking for this, identified his new host page immediately and contacted the cultural exchange service asking them to block him again. Either they are terribly naive or in cahoots with Li’l Kenny Fraudster, because try as we may, we can’t convince them that this new host is in fact Johnson.

The website is Workaway.info. They are violating their own guidelines, supplying free labor rather than a cultural exchange, and aiding and abettng Johnson in violating multiple Chilean laws. They clearly don’t care about the safety of their volunteers since they have no problem connecting them with someone who has committed assault on his co-workers, and who hired Mafiosi to terrorize Chilean workers.

You might want to contact them and tell them what you think of them. http://www.workaway.info/contact.html