This browser does not support the Video element.
Contact 6: Accountant warning
Contact 6: Accountant warning
MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- FOX6's Contact 6 has a warning of an accountant who ended up draining his clients' life savings!
"I thought he was a real nice fella. I thought as much of him as much as my kids. I put a lot of trust in the guy," Loran Dalton said.
That trust was not returned. Dalton's longtime accountant Barry Korcan stole more than $900,000 from him in a bogus investment scheme.
"He did my income taxes and later he came up with this investment - guaranteed - never dropped below 8%. It wasn`t worth the paper it was on," Dalton said.
Korcan urged his clients to put their money in his company called "Guardian Investments." The ironic name didn't protect clients from false hope.
"They would get these statements thinking their money was growing. At the end of the day... these people lost their entire investments," U.S. Postal Inspector Randy Hayden said.
Korcan stole more than $7 million of his clients' money and used it to buy several properties. He used the money on a golf center, lake homes and office buildings. Meanwhile, his victims lost everything.
"I feel terrible about it. I don't want anyone else to have to go through what I went through," Dalton said.
Korcan turned himself into the authorities. He pleaded guilty to federal charges of mail fraud and income tax evasion and faces more than four years in jail.