I dated Ross Rojek in 1992-1993

[dawnsbrain]

I'm freaking out here. All along I thought Ross was just a thieving liar who's owed me $3000 for twelve years. I thought he was a small potatoes con artist. Boy, has Ross grown up! Federal indictment! Millions of dollars bilked!

I will go into the story from my end further, but first I have to go grab today's Sacramento Bee, which features the lovely and talented Ex-Bastard in the Business section.

I'm just astounded. I had no idea he had hurt so many people world-wide. I feel terrible for his two sons.

P.S. I have a few more photos for your Photoshop collage fun. I will thrown them online later this evening.

[dawnsbrain]

http://www.sacbee.com/content/business/ ... 0476c.html

Million-dollar scam alleged
Capital man is accused of defrauding 112 investors.
By Melanie Payne -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, April 24, 2004

A Sacramento comic store owner is finding himself in a not-so-funny situation with the U.S. Department of Justice.
Ross Allen Rojek, 37, owner of the Comics & Comix chain, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of bilking at least 112 investors out of more than $1.3 million. For $10,000, according to the FBI, Rojek sold shares in a company that was supposed to have developed a facial recognition system to help protect against terrorists.

Comics & Comix on the K Street Mall was once part of a seven-store chain stretching from San Francisco to Citrus Heights. The last two stores, in Berkeley and Sacramento, closed Friday following Rojek's indictment on eight counts of mail fraud, two counts of wire fraud and three counts of money laundering. Each mail and wire fraud count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The maximum sentence for each count of money laundering is 10 years.

Rojek was contacted at the Sacramento County Jail, where he is being held in lieu of $1 million bond. He declined to be interviewed. His attorney, Stephen Naratil of Oakland, said that his client had pleaded not guilty and declined further comment.

The FBI began investigating Rojek in February 2003 after investors complained about a company Rojek operated called Face Information Technology, LLC (Face IT). According to an FBI affidavit, Rojek claimed that Face IT had developed a facial recognition system in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Investors were solicited by phone and sent a brochure and other literature on the company.

Rojek claimed that the company was run by three former computer executives who had worked for Netscape and that they had pending patents for the facial-recognition technology. The FBI said that the executives didn't exist, there were no patent applications and that the company had no technology to support its claims.

According to the affidavit, Rojek used false names to also set up a real estate investment trust to solicit funds from investors. That company, American Equity Group, is not named in the indictment.

Edward Blomberg, an 83-year-old pastor, said he invested $10,000 with Rojek.

Speaking by phone from his home in Richfield, Minn., Blomberg said he received a call "out of the blue" from a man who identified himself as Jason Williams to see if he would be interested in investing in real estate. The FBI says Jason Williams was an alias used by Rojek.

When correspondence Blomberg received didn't have a letterhead, he said his grandson became suspicious and advised him against investing. But Blomberg sent a check anyway.

When Blomberg failed to receive the promised certificate showing his ownership in the real estate investment and could not reach Rojek by phone, Blomberg's grandson began to investigate. The grandson discovered that "Jason Williams" was not licensed to sell securities.

"I figured he had lost the money and it was a terrible lesson," said his daughter Janet Blomberg. But through the grandson's perseverance, the title company holding the money sent it back.

Blomberg said that he has learned his lesson, that he's finished investing in high-risk securities - something he had been doing to raise money to help build a church in Venezuela, where he had been a missionary for 20 years.

Rojek has a long history of money troubles. A search of Sacramento County court documents shows numerous civil lawsuits against Rojek dating from 1998.

His current problems have left in the lurch two other Sacramento business owners who shared an electric bill with him at the building on K Street. Shortly after Rojek was arrested, Troy Agid, the owner of Bonehead Tattoos, found out that the Sacramento Municipal Utility District was scheduled to turn off the electricity in the building because Rojek owed $7,000.

Agid said that he, Frank Salim, owner of Frank's Watch Repair, and Rojek divided up the bill according to the space each business occupied in the building. He and Salim would pay their portion with checks to SMUD, but evidently Rojek did not pay his part. Agid has appealed to SMUD, and the lights haven't been turned off yet, he said.

Rojek's name appears on numerous Internet sites attacking him and a company he owned and operated that was supposed to distribute a collector DVD set of a defunct TV program called "My So-Called Life."

Customers complained that after ordering from Rojek they were often double-and triple-billed on their credit cards and failed to get their $99 DVD set.

Jason Rosenfeld had contracted with Rojek in 2002 to set up an online distributorship for the DVD set and encouraged the 4,000 customers to complain both on the Internet and to the authorities.

Rosenfeld said Rojek sent him numerous bounced checks written on accounts with different company names. He figures he lost more than $40,000 in commissions when Rojek failed to pay him. When the FBI contacted Rosenfeld last year about Rojek he said, "I thought they were calling about the DVDs."

[Sascha]

Please don't open a new thread for every new piece of information about Ross Rojek. The link to that article was already posted in our other "Ross Rojek arrested" thread. Ross really doesn't deserve so many threads focusing on him

Oh, and please remember, this is still a forum about the tv show "My So-Called Life", not about Ross' so-called life.

Closing this thread.