Judgment entered in Ponzi case

SANDPOINT — A Washington state court has imposed a $300,000 judgment against a former Bonner County real estate agent accused of orchestrating a Ponzi scheme, court records in Idaho indicate.

A superior court judge in King County, Wash., entered the judgment against Dale Edward Lowell last spring. It resulted from a lawsuit filed by a trio of former investors who were taken in by Lowell’s claims of guaranteed investment returns on stock options.

Investors Leo Montagne and Michael and Patrice Brown won the $301,000 judgment by default because Lowell did not respond to otherwise attempt to fend off the lawsuit they filed.

The trio, according to court documents, began investing money with Lowell in 2006 because he promised his strategies could produce returns of 10 percent and in some cases double their money in only three months.

But Lowell failed to advise customers he was using new investor money to pay off older investors, the hallmark of a Ponzi scheme. When the artifice began to crumble, Lowell variously claimed that he had been swindled in a charity con or that the Internal Revenue Service had “frozen” his assets, the aggrieved investors’ suit said.

After Lowell, 57, reportedly relocated to Colbert, Wash., the Idaho Department of Finance sued him for violating securities laws and bilking investors through the Ponzi scam. It applied for a $2.1 million default judgment against Lowell, and his son earlier this month. Luke Lowell, 30, is accused of receiving proceeds from the investment fraud.

The state’s motion is pending in 1st District Court.

Lowell’s former wife, Suzi, was named as a defendant in the Washington state suit, but the judgment against her was vacated, Washington state court records indicated.