Waffle House and ‘cash cows’: Missouri accuses Ozark businesswoman of misleading investors
BRANSON MO NEWS: CLOSE
Authorities say there are a few factors that help enable people to commit fraud/embezzlement, but safeguards including checks and balances can prevent it.
WochitBuy PhotoCourts(Photo: News-Leader file photo)Buy PhotoPromises of 100 percent return on investment in a repair shop. Regular revenue from a Taney County Waffle House. Real estate plans in Branson offering a guaranteed profit.None of it was real, according to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office, which says Renee Goodman misled several people about financial endeavors in southwest Missouri after pitching plans to investors in southern California. Last week, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft issued orders against Goodman, calling for her to cease and desist and to pay more than $800,000 in restitution and civil penalties. Led by Securities Commissioner David Minnick, Ashcroft’s securities division has continued the work of predecessor Jason Kander, whose office launched an investigation into Goodman and her estranged husband several years ago.Neither Goodman nor her attorney returned a message asking for her side of the story. State Securities Commissioner David Minnick was unavailable for an interview, though his office prepared a comprehensive timeline of Goodman’s case.According to Ashcroft’s office, Goodman is a New Yorker who most recently lived in Ozark. She started a Missouri company called Investment Midwest, LLC, which was formed in October 2007.In 2009, she went to a California investors’ meeting and talked to about 100 people about real estate investment opportunities.Goodman, her former husband Paul and the company also operated as Express Auto, Midwest Mortgage and Midwest Developers, and those company names “were often used interchangeably by Goodman and were not adequately documented with Missouri Business Services,” according to the Secretary of State’s most recent report.In the summer of 2009, Goodman began corresponding with a 59-year-old living near Los Angeles about the prospect of investing in …
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