* Around the time Foote was negotiating a massive pledge to Westminster College, two investors filed suit, accusing him of fraud. Utah County residents Tom and Lindsay Larsen first met Foote when he approached them with ideas to develop two valuable Weber County lots they inherited. They trusted him because of his membership in Rotary International, the service organization where he served on a committee with Lindsay's widowed mother.
The Larsens paid him $35,000 to obtain construction loans, then later to partner with him to buy and operate two electronic billboards. They contributed $200,000 toward the $1.2 million purchase, for which they were to get a $10,000 monthly return. Foote used their then-sound credit to establish bank accounts for the business, dubbed Red Outdoor, and immediately began writing overdraft checks against it, according to the Larsen suit. They have nothing to show for the $235,000 they gave Foote and received no accounting of where the money went.
"It has been a living hell for us," said Tom Larsen, a house painter. "It has put us in jeopardy of losing our house and potential bankruptcy. My wife could lose her inheritance."
Foote failed to respond to the suit and a default judgment was entered in the Larsens' favor in May 2007.
* In a successful effort to get another person to invest the proceeds of her home equity loan, he falsely claimed to have helped the Larsens make a lot of money, according to court documents filed by the Utah Securities Division. The woman, identified as S.S., handed over $50,000 as part of a short-term loan to aid in a real estate purchase, but Foote fraudulently used her money to pay off unrelated debts and business expenses, regulators allege. He was to pay her back in March 2007, but she has yet to see most of her money.
* Another victim was Dustin Godnick, a Taylorsville man who met Foote at a real estate seminar in March 2006. At the time, Foote hustled Godnick to invest in the purchase of five Idaho lots, claiming they could "flip" three of the lots and recoup the entire investment, leaving them two they could develop. Godnick decided to simply assist Foote with a short-term $30,000 loan to buy the land, but the money evaporated and Foote tried to pay him back with a bad check drawn against the Red Outdoor account.
- Brian Maffly
