The alleged Ponzi scheme that preyed on Mormons

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.4 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2023

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today on the show, the $500 million alleged Ponzi scheme that preyed on Mormons.

Las Vegas investigative reporter Jeff German was killed outside his home in September; a Clark County official he had investigated is charged in his death. To continue German’s work, The Washington Post teamed up with his newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, to complete one of the stories he’d planned to pursue before he was killed. A folder on German’s desk contained court documents he’d started to gather about an alleged Ponzi scheme that preyed upon hundreds of people — many of them Mormon — over the course of five years. Post reporter Lizzie Johnson began investigating. Today on Post Reports, we look at how more than 900 people invested an estimated total of $500 million into an alleged Ponzi scheme, and why the men who allegedly ran this operation are still walking free.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's L.I.A.
0:05.0	I wanted to tell you that over the next few weeks, you're going to be hearing from some
0:09.1	really great guest hosts from around the post-Newsroom.
0:12.9	Some of them will be new voices and some familiar, and you'll be hearing from me too, of course.
0:18.5	Today, we've got my colleague Lizzie Johnson, who brings us this really fascinating story
0:24.1	out of Las Vegas.
0:26.1	This story, another investigative reporter, have been working on until he was killed.
0:31.8	So a warning.
0:33.5	This story has several descriptions of graphic violence, so please take care while listening.
0:38.6	Okay, here's Lizzie.
0:42.8	I did this story for another journalist.
0:45.2	His name was Jeff Garmin, and he was an investigative reporter at the Las Vegas Review Journal.
0:50.5	He was killed in September of last year.
0:55.3	The 69-year-old investigative journalist covered crime and corruption there for decades.
1:00.2	And co-workers call Garmin a fearless journalist.
1:03.8	This morning, a Las Vegas politician now formally charged with murdering an investigative journalist.
1:10.0	A local official, who Garmin had been reporting on, has been accused of murdering him outside
1:15.3	his home.
1:16.6	The post had reached out to the Las Vegas Review Journal, asking if there was anything
1:20.4	we could do to help.
1:22.4	Garmin's editor said he had started working on another story right before he was killed.
1:28.4	He'd gotten a tip about an alleged Ponzi scheme that preyed upon members of the Church of
	...

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