William J McCorkel
claimed
to be an expert investor. He made millions of dollars by investing in
government auctions and distress property sales. He was visible in the 1990’s
through his infomercials that ran almost as often as Brad Richdale’s. He
vanished from the scene only after about two years and is currently serving a
24-year prison sentence.
William J
McCorkel sold a government auction system to people to tell them how much money
they could make by picking up stuff worth dollars for just pennies. He claimed
that not many people knew about these auctions and he wished to inform them. McCorkel
would stand in front of a three-million dollar house with his wife and fly a
private jet to show off the money he made using government auctions. Unfortunately,
much of this turned out to be a hoax. In truth, William J McCorkel was
not working with anyone. All the money he made was by defrauding people into
buying his system. To add to it all, he also promised people his support in
such a venture. Nevertheless, when people turned to him for support, he refused
them saying that he was not interested.
Several people
filed complaints against him and the magnitude of these complaints must have
been massive since his prison term is long. When William J McCorkel and
his wife started stashing funds offshore, the authorities got a hint of
something fishy and investigations led to McCorkel’s indictment. William J
McCorkel was indicted on 90 counts of fraud. Though he hired a good
attorney to defend himself, there was not much respite for him.
The 24-year
prison sentence seems rather harsh but the infomercial fraud was large enough
for him to deserve it. Millions of dollars, innocent people’s hard-earned money
was lost in the fraud. Nevertheless, by the end of it, it is just a lesson for
all of us to be careful of frauds like William J McCorkel.
