By: Ozboy
The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting about William Hammons being found guilty in St. George last night for being a criminal perpetrator in Utah's biggest ponzi scheme ever:
For you who haven't been following this case, it was all about a big time scamster in Ogden named Val Southwick, who over ten years or so ripped off over a hundred million dollars from several hundred or so suckers - most associated with the LDS Church, as was he. It's a classic case of affinity fraud as it is so widely practiced here in Utah amongst the faithful.
Southwick is now doing most likely forever in the Utah State Joint. At his sentencing last year there was a long parade of witnesses who had their life savings stolen from them. And then there was Ogden's mayor, yep none other than Matt Godfrey - who never met a scammer or ponzi scheme he didn't absolutely love - and who testified FOR and to the good character of Mr. Southwick and begged the judge not to send his friend and mentor away to the nasty old prison that was really meant for bad guys, not fellow priesthood holder/scam artists!
To refresh your memories, here's the original (and incredible) 2008 KSL News Southwick post-sentencing hearing video story, wherein Godfrey "vigorously" (and unabashedly) goes to bat for one of his "bestest" scammer buddies:
Video Courtesy of KSL.com
This Hammons fellow in St. George was the biggest hustler for Southwick and delivered up a whole bunch of suckers from St. George to be fleeced by the aforementioned high priest/lying thief and mayoral buddy. Turns out that Hammons is, or at least was, a Bishop and fellow High Priest leader - just like Southwick and Mayor Godfrey.
The upshot of this is that the KSL site and the Standard apparently do not find this big story all that big, and certainly not worth a mention in their publications today. So unless Ogden folks read the Salt Lake Tribune they will never know that another big time church leader was found guilty of felonies committed against fellow church members on a very grand scale. My guess is the mayor is pleased that this story has no legs in the Standard, lest the citizens once again get reminded of just who, and how sleazy his bestest buddies really are!
Update 2/26/11 4:36 a.m.: Per Curmudgeon we're informed that "the SE now has the Hammons conviction story up... the AP report":
