The jury heard a lot of FBI wiretaps of Tim Durham and Jim Cochran, the two men who bought Fair Finance from the Akron family that ran it for 7 decades. Prosecutors say the new owners almost immediately began taking money out of it to prop up their other losing business ventures and their own lavish lifestyles.  

Greg Andrews has been covering the trial for the Indianapolis Business Journal

 “There’s a lot of discussion during that period between Tim Durham and Jim Cochran about how to put off investors who are wanting to redeem their investment certificates.”

 In this tape, Jim Cochran tells Durham how he held off an investor who wanted to withdraw 200 thousand dollars after hearing the company had been moving large amounts of money to other firms. Cochran promised investments would grow faster than under the company’s former owner, Don Fair of Akron ….

“It’s a matter of growth I said.   When Don Fair was dointg this he was growing 3 -6% a year in little tiny deals. And companies we control we lend money to.”

 In fact, Fair Finance did not pay back investors.  But On this day, Nov 24, 2009, the same day the FBI would raid Fair Finance  offices,  co-owner Tim Durham liked Cochran’s argument . . .

 “You are good Mr. Cochran.  You are the best at this.   Ha ha ha. “

 The two men chuckled a lot on the tape, especially when saying that, even if the company did go bankrupt,  they could blame it on the collapsing economy.