Wheeler-dealer was expert in flipping real estate

By RICHARD HANNERS

Whitefish Pilot

A Whitefish man who was ordered to pay $5 million in restitution and fines based on federal fraud charges has left the Flathead after his numerous real estate and business dealings caught up with him.

Between 2003 and 2005, local banks and a credit union loaned Robert Joe Beasley more than $17.2 million in at least 15 contracts. Beasley used the money to buy and sell high-end real estate across the Flathead and in Ravalli County, but often the mortgages and taxes went unpaid as he used the money from one sale to finance another.

Many of Beasley’s high-end real estate transactions took place in Flathead County, including Iron Horse, Whitefish Lake, Angel Point and ranch land in the Twin Bridges and Farm To Market Road area. But his financial connections extended across the U.S., from Northern California to New York, and south to the Bahamas.

Everyone the Whitefish Pilot has talked to about Beasley, from the Flathead to Missoula, agree that he came across as a “nice guy,” which might explain how he was able to initiate one deal after another even as his troubles accumulated.

Beasley and his wife Anne moved here in 2001 from Bradenton, Fla., the town where they were both born and where they were married. His wife filed for divorce in January, citing the fraud charges brought by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2005. That’s when Beasley’s wheeling and dealing began to surface publicly.

Longboat Global Funds Management, a company Beasley owned in Sarasota, Fla., operated a commodity pool with six funds, including the Piranha Fund, which was at the core of the federal charges. At least $2 million of Piranha’s money went into Beasley’s Montana real estate investments.

In August 2007, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered Beasley to pay $4.5 million in restitution and a $500,000 civil monetary penalty. The judge also ordered Longboat to pay $9.3 million in restitution and a $1 million civil monetary penalty.

But according to Robb Evans and Associates, which was appointed by the court as the receiver in the case, by the time the case was closed last December, Beasley and Longboat hadn’t paid anything toward the restitution and penalties. Instead, Robb Evans reported, Beasley withdrew another $500,000 against a home equity loan.

Whitefish Credit Union, which made at least 11 loans to Beasley totaling about $12.6 million in 2003-2005, has gone to court several times to recover its money when some of those loans defaulted. Last July, Flathead County District Court Judge Ted Lympus granted the credit union’s request for a default judgment relating to two of those loans.

Beasley had borrowed $2.4 million from the credit union in 2005 and used it to purchase Sleeping Child Hot Springs, near Hamilton, for $5.9 million.

Once a popular public resort, the hot springs was privatized by Ed Chopot, who tore down the old hotel and built a five-story, 25,000-square-foot home with a dozen bedrooms, 18 bathrooms, a seven-car garage, five guest cabins and a heated heliport.

A self-made millionaire from Spokane, Chopot fled the U.S. in 2003 after he fell $12 million in debt to Las Vegas casinos. He was later found murdered in Costa Rica.

In 2006, Beasley told the hot springs’ owners, Harold Mildenberger and John Blahnik, that he was unable to make payments on the $3 million balance. At the time, Beasley had the property listed for $18 million, but he owed $28,000 in back taxes.

The owners agreed to modify the sales contract, but after a second year of defaults, Mildenberger and Blahnik elected to terminate the contract. Their filing for quiet title in 2007 is still active in Ravalli County District Court, and Mildenberger and Blahnik want Whitefish Credit Union to release their lien on the property.

The second property tied to the credit union’s default judgment was 320 acres bordering the Kuhns Wildlife Preserve on Farm To Market Road. Operating under the name BW Ranchland LLC, Beasley paid $2.6 million for the property in November 2003.

By 2006, Beasley had the property listed for $6.9 million, but Robb Evans found four mortgages on the property totaling $9.2 million. About $5.6 million was owed to Whitefish Credit Union, and another $3.6 million was owed to Lewis and Clark Capital, a Montana company that Beasley directed and controlled.

In a sheriff’s auction held in the Flathead County Justice Center lobby last September, the Kuhns property sold for $3.2 million — including the $247 sheriff’s fee. Lympus noted that Beasley still owed the credit union $345,036.

Not all of Beasley’s deals involved expensive real estate. Wayne Phifer is a skilled ironworker who Beasley coaxed into leaving Texas to run Beasley’s Old Montana Ironworks, in Kalispell. The company makes gates, fences, lamps and other decorative metal artwork for high-end homes.

In January 2008, Phifer filed suit in Flathead County District Court claiming Beasley failed to pay Phifer’s share of the profits and seeking the return of equipment he brought up from Texas. Judge Katherine Curtis granted Phifer a preliminary injunction in March 2008 and ordered the equipment be split according their respective shares in the business.

But as 2008 drew to a close, Beasley’s fortunes dramatically changed. His Kalispell attorney, Tammi Fisher, withdrew from this and another Beasley case, and a February jury date was “vacated” by the judge.

Beasley also found himself embroiled in West Valley gravel-pit politics after he paid $3.2 million for a 271-acre property on Farm To Market Road in April 2005. His permit request to operate a 15-acre gravel pit there was denied by the Flathead County Board of Adjustment after Flathead Citizens for Quality Control filed an intervenor brief in the case.

Citing dust, noise and other issues, the organization claimed the gravel pit didn’t comply with the newly-approved West Valley Neighborhood Plan. In March 2007, Flathead County District Court Judge Stewart Stadler denied Beasley’s appeal of the Board of Adjustment decision.

Five months after he purchased the Farm To Market Road property, Beasley had it listed for $6.9 million, but in 2006, Robb Evans reported four mortgages on the property, including $3.2 million owed to Whitefish Credit Union. Beasley also owed $26,000 in back taxes.

It wasn’t unusual for Beasley to take out multiple mortgages on properties, leaving lenders scrambling for senior status when loans went into default. This happened with a 22-acre property on the Flathead River near Kalispell that Beasley bought for $725,000 in April 2004.

By 2006, Beasley owed $565,000 to Whitefish Credit Union and $341,000 to Mountain West Bank for the riverfront property, in addition to $3,400 in back taxes. Mountain West Bank filed a complaint against Beasley in October 2007 after he failed to make his payments.

But Whitefish Credit Union struck first, holding a trustee sale in April 2008. Mountain West’s loan was left unsecured. In June 2008, Flathead County District Court Judge Stadler ordered a summary judgment for Mountain West and directed the sheriff’s office to go after Beasley’s assets, including his Iron Horse home.

Anne Beasley had paid $2.1 million for the home on North Shooting Star Circle in June 2001. The 5,600-square-foot home featured nine rooms and five fireplaces. Soon after ownership was transferred to her and her husband in April 2005, the couple listed the home for $3.1 million.

By 2006, however, the home was appraised at $2.5 million. Robb Evans also found four mortgages totaling $4.1 million, held by Metrocities Mortgage, of California and two Flathead banks — First Interstate and Mountain West. Beasley also owed more than $30,000 in back taxes.

Both Beasleys have left the Flathead, Anne is back in Bradenton, Fla., while her ex-husband reportedly left for Denver just before Christmas. Some of his personal effects were sold in a public auction in January, including guns, tents and other outdoor recreation equipment and dozens of classy “hunting outfits.”