BREAKING: $6 Million Mowen Ponzi scheme auction back on
Back in December, the Feds announced that the $6 million, 207-car collection of Jeffrey Lane Mowen – indicted fraudster, and alleged accomplice/conspirator to attempted murder – would be put up for auction on January 6 in an effort to recoup some of the $18 million he bilked from investors in a Ponzi scheme.
Mowen
Mowen and his lawyers out the kibosh on the sale, however, when they insisted the cars were appreciating faster than they could be appraised. At a hearing in Salt Lake City yesterday, however, Federal Magistrate Paul Warner said essentially that collector car values were not that predictable, and Mowen & co. had seven days to raise specific objections to existing appraisals on a car-by-car basis, and obtain independent appraisal. Bidding will start at 2/3 of appraised value.
Mowen’s collection was in some way part of one of his frauds, and is an odd mixture of collector cars, new muscle, hotrods, modified golf carts, JDM microcars, custom choppers and other odds and ends. No question there are some very interesting and at least moderately valuable cars in there, although he also appeared to have a weakness for clones, tributes and Zimmer-style replicas.
We presume the auction will be scheduled after the seven-day period expires next week, and that Erkelens and Olson, who originally scheduled the sale, will have the new date.
