‘Racing club’ participant penalized

MACHIAS – A Washington County Superior Court justice on Friday ordered an unemployed Baileyville millworker to repay the $35,000 he received from his fellow participants in a NASCAR Racing Gifting Club.

Justice Joseph Jabar directed John Neddeau to pay back the players after finding that Neddeau violated the state Unfair Trade Practices Act by participating in and inducing others to become involved in an illegal pyramid scheme.

Jabar said it was “a shame” that the operators of the NASCAR Racing Gifting Club had imposed the scam on one of the state’s poorest counties.

But anyone who failed to recognize the NASCAR Racing Gifting Club as a pyramid scheme just wasn’t paying attention, the justice said.

Promoters of the “racing club” – which has no connection to the National Association for Stock Car Racing – promised a $40,000 payoff for an initial investment of $5,000. It was one of a number of such schemes that operated in several Maine counties in 2000 and 2001.

Jabar also ordered Neddeau to pay a $5,000 penalty and directed Assistant Attorney General Linda Conti to supply the court with information on how much it cost her office to bring the civil suit against Neddeau.

In setting the $5,000 penalty, Jabar rejected a request by Neddeau’s attorney that he take Neddeau’s financial situation into account.

During the session, attorney Philip Ingeneri of Bangor said his client has been unemployed for the last six months and is living on $300 a week. Neddeau has sold one of two properties he owned in early 2001, and another is under foreclosure, his attorney said.

Jabar said the fact that Neddeau invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by refusing to testify in the case made it impossible to question him about his finances. Any such questioning would have to include what he did with the $45,000 he received from the gifting club, the justice said.

A call to Ingeneri’s office to ask how his unemployed client could comply with Jabar’s order was not returned Friday afternoon.

The $45,000 total includes the proceeds from nine participants involved in two different racing teams, according to testimony. Conti told Jabar that two of the nine men never asked for their money back and failed to respond to inquiries from her office.

According to testimony during the two-day, nonjury civil trial, Neddeau received his first $35,000 during a March 2001 meeting in a Perry barn when he moved into the “driver” position in one of the NASCAR racing teams. The March 2001 meeting was attended by 200 to 300 men, most of whom were carrying $5,000 in cash, according to witnesses who testified.

The $5,000 was the amount that men paid to join a racing team as one of eight “fans.” The new players gave their money to the driver, a man who had started out as a fan and recruited other fans so that he could move up to the position of pit crew, crew chief and finally driver.

As each driver received his $40,000, the team split into two new teams, with each of the new teams having to recruit eight more fans.

William Soule, a retired professor at the University of Maine, testified that 120 fans had to give $5,000 each in order for the eight original fans to move on to driver position and collect their $40,000.

Conti said that by the time Neddeau reached the driver position, the number of available participants had dwindled to the point that Neddeau had to list himself as one of his own fans and, as a result, received $35,000 rather than $40,000.

Of the remaining seven fans on Neddeau’s team, five asked him to return their money when it became obvious that the two new teams were failing to attract fans. Despite a prior promise, he refused to return the money, according to the testimony of the five men.

Neddeau also was involved behind the scenes in another team, having put up the money for friend Mike Hoffses to meet the $5,000 entry requirement.

Hoffses testified that Neddeau told him that he would give Hoffses $5,000 of the $40,000 that Hoffses would receive once he moved into the driver’s position. Hoffses never received $40,000 because only two fans signed on to his team.

With only their $10,000 available, Neddeau took all but $100 of the money and gave him one of his old snowmobiles, Hoffses said.