It was Jan. 21, 2021, when Mary Jane Loevlie first spoke with Chrisheena McGee.
Loevlie wanted to know why the closing for her investor group’s $30 million construction loan was delayed. The Mighty Argo investors had already sent McGee and her title company $4.5 million to secure the loan that would launch their gondola project in Idaho Springs. The loan was supposed to have closed the day before.
“The closing was delayed. She was talking about COVID, and the polar vortex and the European slowdown and all these other things,” said Loevlie. “She was telling me we would have to meet at the Sebastian (hotel) in Vail and have a party when it was done. And it was all bullshit.”
The loan still had not closed a month later and Loevlie and her team of more than two dozen investors began to see just how much fiction McGee was shoveling. As Loevlie’s lawyers and investors continued to call McGee and even demand the return of their $4.5 million in escrow, the woman emailed them a bank statement showing an account with more than $7 million.
“In reality, the bank account had a balance of less than $14,000,” reads the January plea agreement in which McGee admits to using her fake First Title Inc. title company in Virginia to steal nearly $11 million from six different groups, including the Mighty Argo investors. She faces up to five years at a yet-scheduled sentencing in Denver federal court.
The guilty plea by McGee follows a five-year drama that includes a federal grand jury indictment, an FBI investigation and a lawsuit and civil trial where a federal judge awarded $8.7 million to the Argo investors in a case where McGee and her business partner, Sandra Bacon, did not defend themselves.
The plea is the latest chapter in a stranger-than-fiction tale that Loevlie and her investors are ready to end. They scraped up new funding and this spring will open a gondola climbing from the banks of Clear Creek to a mountaintop plaza with eateries and an amphitheater. The $71 million Mighty Argo Cable Car project is expected to transform Idaho Springs, Loevlie’s hometown.
“A Ponzi-like” scheme
In May 2019, McGee said she and Bacon opened First Title Inc. in Fredericksburg, Virgina, to facilitate large capital loans. The two women collected fees from potential borrowers. By October, no funding had come through for four borrowers who had paid down payments for commercial loans.
So the two women found new borrowers and used their fees to repay the clients — the legal documents call them victims — whose loans were not funded. From December 2019 through November 2021, McGee and Bacon entered in escrow agreements with six entities who paid $10.7 million in fees, including $4.5 million from the Mighty Argo group in late 2020. The Mighty Argo group is described as “Victim 10” in the plea agreement.
“To obtain the advance fees, McGee falsely represented to entities seeking loans that she had access to sources of money to fund loans up to $150 million,” reads her “statement of facts” plea agreement. “She falsely represented that she would obtain the capital if victims pay an advance fee — often about 10% of the total loan amount — into an escrow account managed by Bacon.”
The plea says the two women told the borrowers those fees would remain in escrow until the loans were funded, “however those funds were used to repay earlier potential borrowers.”
Whenever anyone asked to use a different escrow agent, McGee said she would only be able to provide funding through Bacon. The two women told borrowers they would invest the advance fees if the loans were not funded by a certain date or simply return the money. They also said the fees could be deducted from the loan amount.
“When upset earlier potential borrowers began to demand return of their advance fees or threaten lawsuits, McGee and Bacon began using advance fees collected from new victims to pay earlier potential borrowers in a Ponzi-like fashion,” the plea agreement reads.
The two women would delay closing dates. They texted and emailed with borrowers saying the advance fees were being used to secure loans. But the two were directing millions of dollars to themselves and back to previous borrowers. McGee used $198,526 of the fees to buy real estate, $91,000 for a BMW and $30,000 to purchase a used Cadillac.
A federal grand jury in November 2023 indicted Bacon and McGee on 12 counts of wire fraud and aiding and abetting wire fraud.
McGee’s trial was set to begin Feb. 2. Bacon has not made a plea deal. The latest filings in the case show Bacon, who was 71 when she was indicted in November 2023 and has delayed trial five times citing treatment for a medical condition, tracking toward a 10-day jury trial starting June 1 in Denver’s U.S. District Court.
Where’s the money?
In addition to a potential prison sentence. McGee faces a fine up to $250,000. She also agreed she could pay restitution up to $7.96 million and she surrendered cash in a bank account as well as a 2021 BMW X6 and a 2016 Cadillac Escalade. Her plea deal also waived a right to appeal or challenge any part of her conviction or sentencing.
Loevlie said her investors are not optimistic they will see anything. No one seems to know where all the money went, she said.
“We had our private investigator try to track it down. We have attorneys all over trying to find anything,” Loevlie said. “We are hoping maybe we can get a million or two back for our investors.”
In exchange for McGee’s plea deal, the government dropped other charges in the federal indictment and supported reductions in her sentencing recommendations.
Loevlie said she is planning to read a statement in U.S. District Court in Denver when McGee is sentenced this spring.
“Really this is something we have put out of our minds because it’s such a negative energy thing,” she said. “We are moving forward and this has only made us stronger and more determined.”