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Silver State Helicopters, continuing coverage


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Posted at the JH board:

 

http://originalforum.justhelicopters.com/D...8350&page=1

 

The walls appear to be closing in on Las Vegas businessman Jerry Airola, president of Silver State Helicopters...

 

Sources familiar with this story say a team of FBI agents raided a warehouse in Valparaiso, Ind., just a few days ago. The G-men carted off boxes and boxes of financial records related to Airola's business dealings. The warehouse was maintained by a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee, but it is unlikely the FBI is pursuing this as a civil matter.

 

A second front is also being opened regarding Airola's suspicious business practices. Law enforcement sources here say a group of attorneys general from several states have been consulting with each other behind the scenes to pursue a much broader legal assault on Airola for deceptive trade practices, playing fast and loose with bank loans, maybe even the diversion of company funds into a certain political campaign.

 

In addition, besides the class action suit in California state court there also appears to be a Nevada state court class action suit in the works.

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Posted at the JH board:

 

http://originalforum.justhelicopters.com/D...8350&page=1

 

The walls appear to be closing in on Las Vegas businessman Jerry Airola, president of Silver State Helicopters...

 

Sources familiar with this story say a team of FBI agents raided a warehouse in Valparaiso, Ind., just a few days ago. The G-men carted off boxes and boxes of financial records related to Airola's business dealings. The warehouse was maintained by a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee, but it is unlikely the FBI is pursuing this as a civil matter.

 

A second front is also being opened regarding Airola's suspicious business practices. Law enforcement sources here say a group of attorneys general from several states have been consulting with each other behind the scenes to pursue a much broader legal assault on Airola for deceptive trade practices, playing fast and loose with bank loans, maybe even the diversion of company funds into a certain political campaign.

 

In addition, besides the class action suit in California state court there also appears to be a Nevada state court class action suit in the works.

 

 

 

Fry,

 

thanks for the update.. always wondering what is up with SS.

 

aloha,

 

dp

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I just wonder how SS even lasted as long as they did, seeing how they/he was operating the way they/he was. I actually seen two robbies on the interstate a few months back on a tractor-trailer, both of them were SS Robbies. Thanks, Fry.

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The class action lawyers are circling. This one is directed at CIT Group...they own Student Loan Xpress...or owned, I think they shut it down.

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/coug...D&dist=hppr

 

The lawyers have to go after the deep pockets, the lenders, because the cash that was paid in advance by SSH's students was looted by Airola and his crew. Here's part of the class action suit filed against KeyBank:

 

10. Because the Defendants [the lenders] paid most, if not all, of the students' tuition to SSH directly shortly after a student's registration and well before the students could possibly complete their education and because Airola and SSH's senior executive were stealing the tuition payments, SSH was dependent on recruiting ever-large pools of new students to finance the training of earlier ones. And that recruitment was, in turn, dependant on the Defendants' deliberate and calculated willingness to turn its eye from the bright red flags of SSH's Ponzi scheme.

 

http://www.pinnaclelawgroup.com/pdf/secondamended.PDF

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  • 3 weeks later...

The Attorney General's Offices for 15 different states have joined together to form a multi-state group to investigate SSH and its lenders. The 14 states that have agreed to be part of this joint effort are Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Nevada, New York, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Washington. 2 additional states, North Carolina and Colorado, were asked to participate in this group, but have so far declined to do so.

 

http://bankruptcypower.blogspot.com/search?q=

 

A prediction: Nothing will come of the "multi-state group investigation". All of the states had laws on the books requiring for-profit vocational schools to register and SSH never did. Those laws should have been sufficent to shut SSH down or at least to investigate it. Utah even held a hearing in May of '07 and nothing came of it. None of the states' AG/Consumer Protection offices did anything then and they will likely not do anything now.

 

As for this attorney who got more than a million bucks from SSH students, my prediction is that the lenders will offer a paltry settlement (they'll still have to pay back something on the loans) as a result of the lawsuits currently underway. This attorney will piggyback on those and claim it is the best the students will get and that they should take the settlement offer. End of case, except for those who will be filing personal bankruptcy, he'll continue to work for them...for an additonal fee. He gets to keep a million bucks and all he really had to do was file a one page claim form with the court for each student

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There are 2 losers and 2 winners in every lawsuit. The winners are the plaintiff's attorney and the defendant's attorney. The losers are the plaintiff and the defendant.

 

This whole situation is the absolute pits. I really feel sorry for the students (or rather, the victims of this scam) who lost their money, their dreams, and possibly their future prosperity. :(

 

The only possible silver lining (no pun intended) is if it makes other students more cautious about paying a lot of tuition up front for ANY kind of training. "Pay as you go" at least limits the potential losses. It's natural enough for a business to try and "lock in" a sale by getting payment up front before the goods or services are delivered, but it's a bad business model from the consumer's standpoint. Any time a business needs to spend future revenue to meet current expenses it's in big trouble and it's time for the customer to head for a more stable supplier. Unfortunately, if you've already paid for those future services (that is, it's your money that's being spent), you don't have a lot of options...

 

Caveat Emptor

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