he's a narcissistic pig Lynn Nelson is
furious the target of her anger the man
who is admitted to stealing more than
250 thousand dollars from her and her
husband he is Josh Abernathy owner of
Omega investment group who guaranteed
investors ten to fifteen percent return
on their money a well-known member of
his church Abernathy held investment
seminars how awesome he is with the
church and he's such a Christian and
he's teaching these elders about how to
handle their finances during the
retirement and I mean everyone around me
is singing this guy's prices Lynn Andrew
thought they had done their homework by
checking Abernathy's credentials which
appeared legitimate I had told on my
previous situations with other
investment brokers my dissatisfaction
with film about how I felt more like a
number you know as the company's got
bigger and things like that and Josh
seemed very personable told me
everything I wanted to hear I get the
quarterly statements in I'm making you
know twelve sixteen percent and I'm
thinking wow this is pretty cool and
he's actually showing us statements okay
so then I gave him ninety thousand
dollars a total of fourteen victims lost
1.3 million dollars in Abernathy scheme
among them William Blanchard a couple of
people had already invested with a
miniature so I figured okay well we'll
try it so we did at one point he along
with Lynn Nelson and her husband began
questioning who would be in charge of
their money if something happened to him
you're driving all these fancy cars all
the time what happens if you wrap one
around a tray well my wife takes care of
that and that's what we were like we
were sitting right here in this room and
all of us looked at him and said your
wife what about your partners well I
don't really have any partners my wife
and I worked this red flag started
popping up and in Blanchard's case
someone recommended he try withdrawing
some of his money I don't want to think
it either i really don't because I'm you
know he and his wife we just love them
to death and and I just didn't want
anything like that to even be possible
but you had to look at that possibility
after Abernathy blew off meetings with
these clients they went to his home
where Abernathy said he had turned
himself in to the FBI
about the money it's gone Josh we mean
gone it's just gone is what he said over
and over again when the money ran out
when he had absolutely no money left he
then walked to the FBI and turned
himself in and admitted to running what
he labeled as a million-dollar Ponzi
scheme officials say Abernathy gave
authorities a thumb drive that included
a victim list as well as the false
financial statements he had been sending
out essentially ended up using their
funds as his own personal piggy bank and
would pay off some of his own bills use
it for his own exotic vacations rent
expensive cars and things of that nature
postal inspectors say Abernathy would
ask victims to write the checks to him
or etrade which is a red flag because he
could take that check and possibly even
put it as personal checking account and
it be legal because it's made out to him