Petters Trial Day 12

Friday, November 13, 2009

Day 12 in the Trial of Tom Petters.

Today we heard from more businessmen about documents forged and deals gone bad.

An assistant buyer who used to work at Circuit City. He testified he didn't sign one of the documents Tom Petters used to borrow money.

Next, businessman Irwin Jacobs was called to testify about a deal that didn't go very well with Petters back in the 1990's.

Greg Bell returned in his white sweater. On direct and indirect examination, Bell talked about what he did when he learned in 2008 that Petters was in deep trouble. He moved millions offshore to trusts in islands all over the world.

Businessman Ted Deikel took the stand next and talked about the deal he had made with Petters in June, 2008. As we have heard from other withnesses, Deikel had a difficult time getting Petters to repay the loan. Petters bounced checks on Deikel and and made a lot of crazy excuses. Deikel received partial payment of the loan but he lost seven and a half million dollars.

The next witness was Petter's nanny Jennifer Wolter who testified that she had not signed one of the documents Petters had used to buy time on his loans.

The next witness was Ray Ross, a retiree living in Arizona. Ross was involved with Charis MInistries when he met Frank Vennes in jail. Ross invested his $491,000 nest egg with Vennes and Vennes invested it in Petters and now it's all gone and Ross and his wife have to live on Social Security.

The final witness of the day was Special Agent Kathy Klug. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Dixon asked Kathy Klug to connect each of the counts in the indictment to documents. That part of the Government's case will be finished on Monday and then we will hear the attorneys for Tom Petters make their case.

Defense attorney Jon Hopeman told reporters that no decision has been made about Tom Petters testifying, but that decision is entirely up to Tom Petters.