The Associated Press
Infomercial guru William J McCorkle and wife were each sentenced in Orlando to 24 years, four months for swindling real-estate customers.
McCorkle appeared stoic and wife, Chantal, cried silently in response to U-S District Judge Patricia Fawsett’s sentence for scamming thousands of people out of 28 (M) million.
Two of McCorkle’s associates were sentenced earlier in the day to five years each for fraud conspiracy.
In addition to the 24-year-and-four-month sentence, McCorkle and his wife were also ordered to perform 60 hours of community service.
McCorkle’s associates, Brian Higgins and Herman Venske, received 5-year prison sentences.
“I made a grave error to give my loyalty to someone simply who did not deserve it,” Higgins said. “The sense of betrayal I feel is total. Practically nothing about the product was true.”
The boyish-looking McCorkle was a familiar face to viewers of late-night television. In 28-minute infomercials, he would talk enthusiastically about how he had gone from a poor child who was once evicted from his family’s home to a real-estate millionaire.
With a near evangelistic zeal, he claimed he could help customers “Pay off your debts, lower your taxes and retire in two years or less …”
Television viewers saw the fruits of his wealth: yacht, luxury home, helicopter. For his defense, McCorkle hired famed attorney F. Lee Bailey.
McCorkle advertised for customers to go down to the local courthouse and find pre-foreclosed or depressed property for sale at half its equity. He would then put up his own money for its purchase and split any profit when the property was sold.
The couple claim they had thousands of satisfied customers and only a few unhappy ones were behind the indictment.
An estimated 1,124 people put their faith in McCorkle, who before getting a real estate license and starting his businesses in 1990 had worked as a busboy and exotic dancer.
McCorkle said he would help his clients with any problems via a telephone support service and he offered a no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. Prosecutors said, however, that never happened when customers went to the courthouse and came back empty-handed.
“Basically I got suckered,” Jeff Dunlap of Charleston, S.C., said as the McCorkles went to trial last fall. Dunlap spent more than $11,000 on McCorkle’s tapes and booklets and then was denied a refund.
(Copyright by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
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Posted under Home Business Scams
This post was written by admin on December 18, 2008
Anybody that purchased his courses deserved to get ripped off! How can anyone be so dumb? The infomercials were hilarious and anyone with half a brain could tell they were all scams. IDIOTS!