First, let me say that I am very sorry that your mother-in-law had to sell her home in Mill Valley. When you said: "she invested every dime she had into my investment company." I find this very hard to believe since we consulted with every investor to only place a maximum of 25% of their actual savings in our second trust deeds.
As to the claim that: "I guaranteed to triple her money" that is pure B/S. At 12 % interest that would have taken over 24 years to accomplish and I never met with any new investor, since that was the job of my 12 employees in the investment department.
For you to say that: "Out of $3 million invested their return was less than $2,500" is also false. The truth is that the following amounts were dispersed to the 2000+ investors who had placed $70 million with the Woodson Company as of 08-31-84.
On 05-14-85, Fireman's Fund paid: $60,688,926.88
On 05-31-86, Federal Bankruptcy Trustee paid: $ 4,998,369.50
On 07-19-86 Firemen's Fund paid: $ 8,469,553.21
On 09-31-87 Federal Bankruptcy Trustee paid: $ 1,377,663.26
On 08-26-88 Federal Judge Vukasin paid: $ 5,374,250.00
On 01-31-91 Federal Judge Vukasin paid : $ 160,000.00
On 06--4-91 County of Marin paid: $ 24,968.90
On 11-06-92 Woodson's Bankruptcy attorney paid: $ 1,043,255.60
On 08-26-93 Federal Bankruptcy Trustee paid: $ 1,480,274.97
Gand total paid to all 2000+ investors: $83,617,262.32
This is the largest recovery to financial investors in the history of the American Banking. On March 9, 1988, the SF Chronicle wrote a story about another company that had also gone bankrupt. They said: " Golden Plan Investors to get $1 for every $70." "The investors lost about $70 million, court records showed. Settlement proceeds of $1.3 million are expected to be diminished by $150,000 in legal fees and about $66,000 for other costs.
In Federal Bankruptcy Court a recovery of 10 cents on the dollar is about normal. Does anyone remember Enron? $50 Billion in investor money was lost in that one.
So the real question now is why, when I gave a 60+ page binder with all of the above information, court orders and copies of their own stories to Paul Peterzell of the Marin IJ in early March 1993, did they refuse to print the truth in their front page story on March 29, 1993?
Since I have saved all of the $51 million in interest checks and all of the computer printouts, please post your mother-in-law's name and I will be happy to inform all of these readers just how much un-reported interest she received over the years and just how much money she also received from the $83+ million in actual payouts.
Sorry to take so long to answer your post but I have been completely absorbed in writing my book about what happened over two decades ago.
To answer your question, no I am not totally innocent. Even though I had complete power of attorney over 13 million, I did technically violate the California Penal Code Section 504.
A "Donald Trump" would have simply filed for bankruptcy and walked away from the 2000+ investors had entrusted us with over 70 million.
Since I was not raised that way, I felt that it would have been an act of extreme cowardice for me to abandon all of those many people when there was the actual ability to save everyone.
The reason this became such a big story in Marin in the 1980s was that I had served as a senior advance man for 4 Republican Presidents and multiple US Senators and Governors.
The Marin IJ decided, as most liberal newspapers over the past three decades, to purge and to destroy as many Republicans as possible so that only their candidates on the radical left would be the ones to impose "group think" on our mostly uninformed electorate.
The liberal newspapers led by the NY Times and TV media that parrot everything that they say, have succeeded beyond their wildest expectations with this coordinated policy of "personal destruction."
Without a viable moderate or conservative viewpoint being expressed as an offset, the Democrats with Hillary at the top of the ticket are on the verge of complete national control.
The fact that within our three small counties of Marin, Sonoma and San Francisco, four liberal women now control the politics of the entire state.
In Petaluma, you have Lynn Woolsey. In Marin, you have US Senator Barbara Boxer. In SF Presidio Heights, you have US Senator Dianne Feinstein and in SF Pacific Heights, you have the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
This political triangle that is 30 miles high and only 2 miles at the base, now and in the foreseeable future is controlling a state that is 200 miles wide and 1000 miles long and has over 38 million citizens. There is no longer a moderate or conservative elected official left within the entire SF Bay Area.
They only became this powerful because of the liberal media that has placed them in office by destroying any vestige of the Republican Party and so I necessarily became a local casualty of this "scorched earth" policy.
The Marin IJ had the exact payments made to all of the investors in March 1993 but it seems it was more important for them to destroy the GOP than it was to tell you the real facts about the demise of the Woodson Company.
I remember Michael Woodson and it is not by choice. My Mother-inlaw invested every dime that was left to her and my husband when my father-inlaw passed away. He swore up and down that he would invest the money very wisely and that he would triple there investment. Well we all not that did not happen. She ended up having to sell the house in Mill Valley (just off W. California ave.) and move into a tiny studio apartment in Novato. If I remember correctly, Out of the $3 million invested there return was less than $2500.00 each from the settlement fund. That son of a bitch should have been hung for what he did. Today my Mother inlaw is 78 years old and can not even retire. She works an average of 40 hrs. a week in for a newspaper in Mill Valley.
MICHAEL WOODSON WROTE: Those same 2000 investors also received over $51 million in unreported taxable interest to the IRS and the State of California because of a loop hole in the tax code. Many of these "victims" as the Marin I.J. called them were in the 70% tax bracket and they never paid a dime in taxes.
The only losers in this "crime of the decade" were me and my 4 children since we lost our home, $12 million in Real Estate investments, my fully vested pension that provided me with $95 thousand a year for life at age 65 that I am today, all personal assets and I was forced to agree to a $15 million dollar restitution judgement for 15 years following 33 months in the Marin County Jail.
As soon as I signed this non-dischargeable restitution agreement, my probation was revoked just 16 days short of serving my 5-year jail sentence and I was sent into San Quentin to serve another 5 years of the original 10 year maxium sentence. -------
Michael,
First, I have no idea if you're actually Michael Woodson. Assuming you are him, your post sounds like you feel you were completely innocent, did nothing wrong whatsoever, and there were no victims.
If that's the case, why do you think so many people were so furious at you at the time? And why do you think you were forced to go to jail?
From your post, it sounds like you believe there was some kind of conspiracy formed against you by the local media and the courts. I wasn't following the news too much back then and know almost nothing about your case. (Just to be clear, I'm NOT interested in debating you or any facts of your case and I'm not trying to piss you off.) But as I read your post I can't help wondering....if everything you're saying is true, why YOU? I mean -- in your opinion, why would a whole community and a newspaper, judges, lawyers, a jury, and "victims" who (you say) aren't really victims, decide to gang up on one innocent guy with a sick wife?
I'm also curious to know what jail was like in Marin during the Eighties? Care to share with the Forum?
I was just out of high school when all that happened, but I do remember it, and I remember it being a topic of interest at my house, because my mother was a real estate agent at the time.
When do you think the book might be finished? I'll definitely buy a copy.
Wow, it has been almost 23 years since I was forced into bankruptcy by Fireman's Fund, who receive over $1.6 million in premiums over a 2year period and who against all logic, pulled the unique insurance policy out from under the Woodson Mortgage Company (WMC) of San Rafael on August 16, 1984.
Since the Marin I.J. and the SF Chronicle have written over 300 front page articles only telling one side of this story, I do not blame you for still describing me as a "crooked real estate dealer/broker" but there is a lot more to this story than "the politics of personal distruction" as practiced by our local liberal media who served on 4 White House staffs for the evil Republicans.
The truth is that after I had infused over $4 million of my own money in 1983 back into WMC to cover losses on loans that were originated prior to the insurance being issued, I was faced with a terrible choice of (1) filing for bankruptcy protection, staying home with my 38 year old wife and mother of my 4 young children who's breast cancer had returned through her body or (2) attempting to save all 2000 investors who had intrusted our family with over $70.0 million of their savings over the past 35 years. I tried but failed to do both at the same time.
I made the moral decision to attempt to sell WMC because I had obtained a unique Real Property Security Dealers Permit" that allowed WMC to operate as a "private mortgage banker" of which there had only been 6 permits issued to over 100,000 real estate brokers in California since the law was enacted in 1975.
None of my 5 corporate or personal attorneys, the 2 CPA's and their large accounting firm or the 4 newly hired financial advisors ever informed me that to proceed with their advice, to keep the company going while trying to find an out of state buyer for my permit, would subject me to multiple violations of CA penal code section 504 and that I could spend 10 years in state prison.
I will be happy to go into greater detail if you like but because I kept WMC going into 1984 and all but a small group became insured, when it was all said and done, we collected $82.6 million on the original $70.0 million tha had been invested as of August 1984. This remains today the largest investor recovery in American banking history.
Those same 2000 investors also received over $51 million in unreported taxable interest to the IRS and the State of California because of a loop hole in the tax code. Many of these "victims" as the Marin I.J. called them were in the 70% tax bracket and they never paid a dime in taxes.
The only losers in this "crime of the decade" were me and my 4 children since we lost our home, $12 million in Real Estate investments, my fully vested pension that provided me with $95 thousand a year for life at age 65 that I am today, all personal assets and I was forced to agree to a $15 million dollar restitution judgement for 15 years following 33 months in the Marin County Jail.
As soon as I signed this non-dischargeable restitution agreement, my probation was revoked just 16 days short of serving my 5-year jail sentence and I was sent into San Quentin to serve another 5 years of the original 10 year maxium sentence.
Firemen's Fund lost over $38 million when they forced WMC into bankruptcy, which did not include millions of additional legal fees, to ward off the 100 attorneys of record who were suing them and the threat by the California Insurance Commissioner to terminate their California license to operate, when they refused to honor the insurance policy to all of the local investors who received their insurance certificates.
You and all of the Marin County residents have never received this information since the I. J. does not want to tell you the truth about the "crime of the decade" since many their friends and neighbors were investors and got very rich, thank you.
Boy, I sure was some crook. How I wished that I had placed the well fare of my dieing wife and our 4 children above the well fare of those 2000 investors. For had I not done the right thing morally, they would have all lost $ 15-20 million with no recourse. That is what Donald Trump would have done and it sure would have made the Marin DA very unhappy that I did not break any laws and therfore could not be charged with his 857 felony count indictment.
O-well, as the framed poster on my store wall that shows "Murphy Laws" so states "No good deed ever goes unpunished-ever."
I am just sorry that you missed this gravy train but do not worry about the brief answer to your posting for I am in the process of writing a very long book that names everyone that was involved in this "travesty of justice." More shall be revealed and soon, very soon.
Michael paid his restitution. He moved in with his mother in Tiburon and took care of her until she died about three years ago. His mom and mine were neighbors and very close friends for many years. He was also very good to my mom and brought her groceries or helped her out whenever she needed something, even after his mom passed away. As far as I know, he continues to live in the same place. Since my mom is now gone as well, I can't be sure.
He started Woody's, a yogurt and ice cream shop in Tiburon on Main Street about ten years ago and then moved the business to Strawberry Village a couple years later. Today, it's a very successful business.
He was a crooked real estate dealer/broker who was riding high in Marin until he was convicted of fraud & embezzlement in connection with a second mortgage Ponzi scheme in the mid 1980s and sent to jail.
The reason this comes to mind is that I recently moved my offices to what was formerly the Woodson Building on Irwin between 2nd & 3rd streets in San Rafael. He had a fancy office in that building with a fireplace which is still there. The building was later occupied by Kit Cole and is now called the Mathews Building and owned by a family of the same name.
I hear Woodson is still kicking around Marin. Anyone know what hes up to?
