Bill Thayer, left, center is a leased SUV which shuttled customers to his tours over the Ohio River
 in July, and right is the helicopter he hired from North Carolina. ST. MARY'S TODAY photos

Charges dropped for now in West Virginia;

Thayer held in jail on fugitive charges from New Jersey

UPDATE --- (Dec. 11, 2008) After allegedly defrauding a North Carolina helicopter firm out of their fees for the Marietta River Roar helicopter tours he conducted last summer, New Jersey businessman William Harris "Bill" Thayer remains in custody in a West Virginia jail even though local charges were dropped, temporarily by prosecutors.  Thayer is being held on a fugitive warrant from Atlantic City, New Jersey, reports WTAP in Parkersburg.

The New Jersey charges are the result of a scheme in which Thayer allegedly bilked two men out of their savings for setting up a truck delivery firm in the New York area with new trucks he was supposed to be buying from Toyota. 
Atlantic City headquarters of interstate gangster Bill Thayer, located at the Ocean Club on the Boardwalk.  This valuable property could be sold quickly and bail Thayer out of jail and out of trouble, if you don't count a possible rip-off by Thayer of mafia gang on a truck deal. 

After months of being put off by Thayer, one of the alleged victims reports that he contacted Toyota who told him that they had no arrangement with Thayer to sell him trucks.

Thayer had represented that he was opening a truck body plant in Parkersburg to be near a new Toyota truck plant which opened last year.   He never opened the plant and the warehouse he arranged for stayed vacant.  Authorities are looking at a possible million dollar helicopter which may be stolen and in boxes in the building.

$8 G's lost in another scam

UPDATE (Dec. 4, 2008) --- The latest revelations in the saga of Bill Thayer came on Dec. 3^rd when local Woods County officials in West Virginia that operate the Parkersburg airport, Mid Ohio Valley Airport Authority, admitted that they lied to the Parkersburg News Sentinel last week when asked about the status of the lease between the airport and Thayer’s Jet Center.

The newspaper was very polite towards their local yokels who should never have enacted the lease in the first place but the airport director and one of the commissioners who serves on the airport authority could be embarrassed if they had to disclose the gifts and meals which have been lavished on them by Thayer in the past year.

In another development, a retired Pennsylvania State Trooper contacted ST. MARY’S TODAY to find out if a class action is being formed to attempt to recover money for victims of Thayer’s scams.

This man has known Thayer for 35 years and was indebted to Thayer for his kindness in flying his son to a hospital at no charge for an emergency operation.  Living on a retired cops humble retirement in addition to suffering from paralysis as a result of surgery, has left this former trooper with not too many options.

But just one year ago, Thayer called upon this man for a $8,000 loan which he said he needed to buy some tires and promised a quick repayment.  The man felt obligated to make the loan and only now realizes that all of his attempts to recover the money which went for naught, likely still will not be rewarded.

Unless of course if Russ shows up with his other sock, perhaps this man’s fortune could change.
This old friend of Thayer's confirms Thayer's connections with Donald Trump, saying that he once ran errands for Thayer to Trump at the Trump headquarters in New York.

Ten G's in Cash Pulled from Sock

UPDATE (Dec. 3, 2008) ---  Another strange twist came on Tuesday, Dec. 2nd, when Marietta Ohio businessman A. J. Watson reports that Russ Rohrboch and Steve Goldman, acting for Bill Thayer, showed up at his attorney's office to pay his back rent.  Watson said that the men met him by prior arrangement at his own attorney's office and requested to pay the amount of the checks which had been returned for NSF.   They also requested access to the house that Thayer has executed a long-term lease from Watson.  Watson required them to sign a statement that they were employees of Thayer in order to get access. 

"Then Russ reaches down and pulls his sock down and whips out $10,500 in cash," said Watson, "who knows what was in the other sock."

Russ Rohrboch was the cashier for the helicopter tours which was set up at Marietta's Riverfront Roar last July.    Thayer has stated in a prior interview that Rohrboch was his partner in a Budget Truck Rental franchise.

Watson says he intends on pursuing a lawsuit for the full value of the $200,000 lease.
"He promised he was going to break me when all I wanted was my rent," said Watson.

Does Thayer Have a Secret Business Office

in a Fort Wayne Motel?

UPDATE --- (Dec. 2, 2008) --- Trent Chapin’s view of the arrest of Bill Thayer is one of relief that Thayer is no longer able to allegedly harm him or his family and also of hope that Thayer will not be able to get out of jail.

Thayer, in an interview earlier this year, acknowledged a court order restraining him from having any contact with Chapin, calling him or harassing him.

But an interview with Chapin revealed the existence of a secret office in Indiana which authorities may not even know exists, and that office could be of great interest to IRS and police investigators in three states.

“He (Thayer) has a standing room at the motel in Fort Wayne, on corner of Lima and Washington Blvd. next to the Cracker Barrel, he paid for it by the year, the room was full of plastic bins with files of paperwork,” said Chapin. “It was on the third floor and the lady at the motel said that he paid for it yearly, I saw it several times, and it was full of documents and files, some aviation things, it was on the third floor, at the end of the parking lot is the Volkswagon dealership. Looking out of the motel room is the Washington Blvd.”

Chapin said the secret office was outfitted with a king size bed but the rest of the room contained stacks of plastic bins filled with files.

The IRS and police can obtain search warrants for a home or office but first they have to know that those places exist. Thayer has been buying and selling fleets of used trucks and has no known business office, thus the motel-office revealed by Chapin could lead some who have actions to actually find hidden assets.  It will be enticing to find if investigators manage to get to Thayer's hidden office before he gets bailed out and does it himself, covering years of tracks.

This map, courtesy of Google, might assist investigators in finding the secret files of Thayer’s illicit business activities and a key to the hidden assets.

“He put sugar in my gas tank in my BMW, I couldn’t prove it, I know it was him, he paid my neighbor , Bill Thayer paid him to come over to check in my house to see if Kellie was in my house, from midnight on to see if Kellie was sleeping in my bed, that was in New Haven, Indiana when Bill had thrown Kelli and my kids out of his house in a fit of temper.”

“I just had stomach surgery and I was in the hospital for 28 days and he tried to garnish my lawsuit with the auto dealer, and my lawyer got it thrown out of court, he was trying to get Kelli in trouble, he wanted me to do a deposition and Rohrman’s attorney was there and I called my attorney and I got the Judge on the line and the Judge got the Federal Judge on the line who stopped it all, he was always trying to get into places he didn’t need to be in, he was always into my business,” said Chapin.   “He would call at all hours of the night.  When I left Missouri, the next thing I know he has moved only 12 miles away from me and he is trying to lease a building from my boss here in Ohio.  How does that happen?  He came all the way down here to raise havoc with me, is this guy psychotic, he says he’s a retired cop, he flashes a badge. When we were in Fort Wayne and a cop ordered him to get his dog out of a trailer at the motel on a hot summer day, the officer said he didn’t care if he is a cop, to get the dog into air conditioning.  He always had a gun with him, it made me nervous, he didn’t mind showing his gun and saying he’s a cop.”  

“I got a restraining order against him,” said Chapin.

“I did nothing but give Kelli my kids a place to stay when he would kick them out, it happened maybe 6 or 8 times, maybe more, the last time, he was on a business trip and she came over to me and said she can’t take it anymore, so I have a responsibility to my kids to help them, she was moving stuff back and forth in the Sport Trak and Bill was with her in the truck, the sugar in the gas tank happened not long after that.

He paid me for advise on how to keep my ex wife, on how to keep her happy. He was paying her $750 a week to live with him.  I told her how that made her look, but she said he wouldn’t let her get a job to make money.  He always carried cash in manila envelopes with hundreds of dollars in cash inside in his briefcase,” said Chapin.

“He would always ask me for advise,” said Chapin. “He wasn’t paying people at the truck wash on Goshen Road and would rack up a bill and wouldn’t pay them.  He had a white haired lawyer on Berry Road in Fort Wayne, he was more than just a lawyer to him,” said Chapin.

“But I was afraid he would come into my house and I would have to protect myself and my family and I asked my attorney what should I do, he said go get a restraining order,” said Chapin.

Thayer jailed on fraud charges

(Dec. 1, 2008) --- It was a tough time for a man who once had it all to go to jail the day before Thanksgiving. 

But that is what happened to New Jersey businessman Bill Thayer, the operator of the Parkersburg Jet Center at the Parkersburg, West Virginia airport, according to one of the local newspapers and the local Fox affiliate.

Besieged by creditors, his irate landlord left holding the buck on rent checks not yet made good for the last 90 days and by helicopter leasing firms that flew some 400 passengers for him during the annual Marietta Ohio Riverfront Roar, Thayer didn’t do the predictable and leave town.

Instead he stayed at his mountaintop lair overlooking the Ohio River valley, a place that seemed to bring him solitude and where he could let his white husky run, while drinking in the views over the fields below.

Thayer faces lots of charges but an old lawyer friend who arrived at the hilltop haven will likely discover that the man is simply crazy, no one can be as talented and brilliant and become so insanely crooked as Bill Thayer has become in the last 25 years.

When the landlord came knocking at the door and requested for the rent checks to be made good, he said that Thayer instead threatened to break him if he persisted in his efforts.

The landlord, A. J. Watson, told ST. MARY’S TODAY that he simply wanted to get his property back and Thayer warned him that he would tie up his property for the next six months, a time frame that his own lawyer agreed might be possible.

Watson said that the income was important to him and that he couldn’t understand how the once charming and imaginative entrepreneur could have become so deadly to deal with.

Thayer had entered into a deal to buy a parcel of land from Watson’s father near the 12 acre mountain farm he leased.  But with a deadline several months ago, missed, the deal was dead.

At last count, Thayer’s latest deal to buy the Marietta VFW property for use as a helicopter landing site and truck sales lot fizzled.  Another land deal in Marietta calls for a closing this month but it may be that some significant timbering has already taken place.

The New Jersey realtor that Thayer snookered on investing in 10 Toyota trucks to be modified with custom built beds at a non-existent truck plant in Parkersburg has hopes of collecting on his $75,000 worth of ruse by attaching Thayer’s valuable property in Atlantic City.

Indeed, even in his booking photo in Marietta, Ohio, Thayer sneered as if he was James Cagney defying the feds.  He looked as if he could bite the camera. See this WTAP TV website clip.

According to some who have talked to investigators there may be a final act ready to play out in this larger than life saga.

There could be a stolen helicopter sitting in pieces inside of the shuttered warehouse that Thayer was attempting to hustle on the internet, but whatever other charges may be forthcoming will be played out as soon as the Wood County task force investigation is presented by prosecutors.

The sympathy shown Thayer by judges in his series of convictions might well have evaporated in his current cases.

No longer will the $25,000 annual Christmas Parties he hosted with Governors, Congressmen, U. S. Senators, federal judges and White House officials such as Reagan Administration Budget Director David Stockman showing up will do him much good when the time comes for judge and jury.   

According to one person who attended Thayer's annual Christmas Party, his guests included Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo, Sen. Arlen Specter and the Governor of Pennsylvania.

There won’t be much sympathy for a man who has been out to cheat the little guy, and while his former flame Kellie expresses remorse over her past years of crime, Thayer simply makes threats to wreck those who confront him.

The following excerpt of an Allentown Morning Call news story from 1994 reveals his connection with Donald Trump and is but one of dozens of such stories that can be found in the newspaper's archives: "With no similar cash offer being made to First Lehigh Bank -- [William Thayer]'s other largest creditor -- First Lehigh threw its support behind a development plan offered by a bidder that includes Greenwood Racing, which runs off-track betting parlors in Pennsylvania. First Lehigh is owed $3.4 million on a mortgage for 7 acres of the Thayer property, according to Tom Marino, Thayer's lawyer.

The Greenwood plan would pay Thayer's creditors $10 million up front and $7 million if casino gambling is legalized in Pennsylvania. Because Thayer owes creditors about $10 million, the remaining $7 million would go to him, but only if the Greenwood group can get a casino license within six years, Marino said. If it can't get a license in that time, the Greenwood group will keep the land and Thayer will get nothing, Marino said.

In contrast, [Donald Trump] would pay some money down and assume most of the liabilities for the land, paying them off over five years, said Marino. If the property is licensed for gambling, Trump would pay an additional $2 million. For that, Trump would have a 90 percent share of the property and Thayer the remaining 10 percent."

Thayer’s fall from grace has, this time, been without a bungee cord of privileged protection.

A posting in the Parkersburg News and Sentinel by a person who still admires Bill, states that Thayer always paid him and those Wood County West Virginia officials who did little or nothing to protect that county's taxpayers by performing a background check prior to leasing airport facilities to him assert that Thayer has kept up on his rent payments, but it is clear they are nervous over his arrest.

It would still be possible that a newly made friendship with the Governor of West Virginia, or an old one with the Governor of Pennsylvania, may result in charges being dropped or Thayer suddenly posting bail and then disappearing, never again to be seen as he takes off from an airport somewhere in Kentucky and flies south to Central America where he may have a stash ready for such a time.

Still, to try to explain what happened to the brilliance of this man who was raised in an orphanage in Richmond, Va., was self educated, accomplished in business and once had Michael Jordan as his neighbor in a ocean front penthouse just isn't possible.

Take a peek at the wealth of Thayer at one time, along with his financial prowess, from this news article from 1990 in the Allentown Morning Call:

"In a letter last year to The Morning Call, [William H. Thayer] listed his assets at $178.4 million. Asked last night to assess his worth, Thayer said $112 million, $80 million to $90 million of it in real estate.

Adding to this, [Seymour Traub] said, is that the market values of Thayer's properties have fallen as reports arose of his various financial difficulties. Potential buyers have held out, sensing Thayer would be forced to sell cheap.

Thayer's other corporate holdings include Fleet Helicopter, which leases helicopters, and Thayco Financial Corp., which provides lease financing to customers of Fleet Sales & Leasing, Thayer's core business which builds, leases and refurbishes semi-truck trailers. These three businesses, all headquartered outside Coopersburg, employ 50 to 60 people."

Thayer could put together a million dollar deal from nothing before lunch without breaking a sweat.  But how could he stoop to ripping off a landscaper in New Jersey or trying to browbeat the ex-husband of his girlfriend, who won a court order to keep him away.

At times, cruel and mean, at another time, taking in a wayward women and her kids to his home to give them a better life; the complexities of his personality show that Thayer had some of the right instincts and made a lot of bad decisions.

(Editor's Note: On several occasions this year, even though Thayer sought out and had asked to have the story of his girlfriend's nationwide identity theft told in ST. MARY'S TODAY, he was told that in telling the story,  that the story led back to him and his story was a much larger story to tell.  In effect, Thayer's many conversations seemed to acknowledge that he knew the end was near for him and like so many other megalomaniacs, he wanted his story told.)

 
William Harris Thayer, in jail mug shot upon incarceration on Dec. 1, 2008.

Update: Helicopter Firm Alleges Thayer Failed to Keep Deal

 for Marietta, Ohio Boat Races Helicopter Tours

Sudden departure from Atlantic City of Helgoe's

 boyfriend ends up with mountain top hideaway

 and new Ohio venture while old convictions

haunt him


By Kenneth C. Rossignol
ST. MARY'S TODAY

UPDATE (Sept. 8, 2008)  --- A few months after the last update of this story a remarkable thing happened to Kelli Helgoe.  Her stormy relationship with her boyfriend took a new turn.  Bill Thayer, who had thrown her out of his Fort Wayne, Indiana home after complaining about her sons and their bad manners, lazy habits and disrespect towards him, called her up out of the blue, flew into town in Missouri where she was living with two of her sons and stayed for the weekend.  Thayer, when he is in a good mood, showers Kelli with gifts and this time he rented a new Mustang for a month and left it with her when he left town. 
Not long after that, he leased a mountaintop home in Marietta, Ohio, where he was setting up his new business, and this time he paid for Kelli and her sons to come live him in a 6,000 square foot custom built home complete with stables and outdoor hot tub.
This home in a secluded area just outside of this neat and proper southern Ohio town was a perfect place for Thayer to crank up his newest venture.  
Since meeting Helgoe four years earlier in a truck stop, Thayer was working hard at rebuilding his business empire which once included manufacturing plants, truck fleets and a helicopter sales and flying business.  Perhaps having a net worth of about $150 million, Thayer could be down to whatever he is currently hiding from the IRS, which could be substantial, just not the same big numbers he once had.
After 15 years of bad luck, bad decisions and convictions handed down by federal courts, Thayer needed for his luck to change.
Thayer had held on to one of two condos in the Ocean Club, a ritzy ocean front building on Atlantic City's boardwalk near the major casinos and still had two boardwalk level offices in the building. 
Up until December of 2007, Thayer lived in the condo with his wife, who apparently was unaware of his second life with another woman in another state.
But a year earlier, Thayer had sold one of his two offices to a realtor from New York and that relationship became one that the realtor would call close and friendly.  With his long background in sales of truck fleets, Thayer was more than able to create a new business opportunity, perhaps every day with his creative and never idle mind.
It was the concept of a new trucking business with fast service from New York airports to nearby businesses using new Toyota mid-size trucks with bodies built in a Thayer-owned truck plant in West Virginia, that interested Dan Maloney.  
Maloney said that Thayer conducted an investor meeting at a buffet in one of the casinos and painted a picture of prosperity and profits. 
Soon Maloney had put up a total of $75,000 and a friend had invested another $7,000. 
The trucks  would be rolling out of the Innovative Truck Body plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia in January of 2008 and soon the return on the investment would be supplementing the income of the realtor, a good thing as the real estate business slowed.  This was real money to Maloney as it was his inheritance and he wanted to make sure he invested it wisely.
Maloney had been doing more business with Thayer, listing his old dairy property in the marina district of Atlantic City for sale.  Thayer believes the property is worth $24 million in his vision of it, dubbed The Oasis, becoming a super Wawa type gas station and shopping center while Maloney says it is worth about $2 million.  While there is a great disparity in price, the property sold at the low end would still yield a tidy profit for Thayer and likely pay all of bills. Thayer's Atlantic City Helicopter Service is run out of his empty boardwalk office and has no visible operations.  The New York Times did an article on Thayer's chopper tours in 1998, proof that at one time it was flying high.
But one Thayer venture included a sale of property in Philadelphia to Donald Trump, which didn't turn out too well. 
That was then, and this is now.
Thus far, Thayer has failed to pay Maloney and the realtor has filed criminal charges against Thayer alleging fraud and deceit in his alleged con of a non-existent trucking firm with trucks from a truck plant which does not exist.  Toyota told Maloney that it has no deal with Thayer to provide him with trucks and a deadline of June 1st for Thayer to pay Maloney back came and went.
While Kelli kept house for Thayer and posed in the new town where he set up shop as his fiancé, her sons also set down roots, making friends and the youngest son excelling in the Marietta racing crew and keeping up good grades.
But Thayer once again tired of not seeing proper respect paid to him in his role as substitute father and lord of the manor and once more booted Kelli and her kids out of his house, as he had done in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he maintains another home and maintains a small used truck sales lot that consists of a one page website and four trucks for sale.
This time Kelli moved into a small apartment and got a job at senior care giver firm.  Her record soon became a problem as background checks and finger prints would reveal her identity theft background.   But Thayer soon wanted her back and this time Kelli wasn't budging.  He sent her emails in the middle of the night, first offering her a new Jeep, then a new Camaro and when that got no response, he offered her marriage, next year, as he had to get a divorce first.
No response to all of his offers and this time Kelli was holding her cards close and knew when to hold them and knew when to fold them.  Her oldest son had been busy on the internet and he had found the court actions pending in the Atlantic County Court filed by Maloney.  He downloaded the files and Kelli passed out the 26 page documents to dozens of businesses and politicians in Marietta and Parkersburg where Thayer was setting up shop. 
It seems that Thayer would hunt Kelli down and pursue her, trying to cause her to lose her employment and make her dependent on him, pointing out to all who would listen that she had a criminal background.   In an interview she said she was remorseful, regrets her actions and is trying to straighten out her life.
But this time, she wanted to set the record straight and by passing out Thayer's background to the Marietta folks, she might have settled some scores with Thayer, who is completely obsessed with her, according  to those who know him well.
Thayer had convinced the local yokels at the Mid Ohio Valley Airport Authority and the Wood County Airport Authority to give him a 50 year $10,000 a month lease for two hangers and runway apron space for his new Parkersburg Jet Center.  
It is unknown if they went to Fort Wayne to see his closed down truck sales lot or his recycling center which consisted of five Mexicans cutting a trailer apart with blow torches.  How much checking into Thayer's criminal background was done by MOV Authority Airport Manager Terry Moore or the local county commissioner who sits on the board is unknown but clearly the airport authorities wanted to believe in Thayer and too much digging would pop their bubble. 
Besides the way Thayer would wine them and dine them at the fancy hotel in Parkersburg could convince them that he was on the up and up.  Schmoozing was an art form for the man who the local newspapers referred to as "the New Jersey businessman".
Happily ignoring anything approaching cynicism or digging, the local press who likely couldn't work up a lather doing any background investigations on their own, showered Thayer with good news stories.
In July Thayer struck a deal with the local VFW Post to lease their ball field at the edge of the Ohio River for a helipad site and ran helicopter tours over the boat races held that month.   With leased helicopters coming from as far away as North Carolina, Thayer had promised hourly figures he couldn't keep and soon ruptured relations developed which are not yet solved.
Next the industrious Thayer struck a deal to buy the Marietta VFW property, one that is still pending.    But the plant that Thayer said he bought for $580,000 sits empty and when showing it off to visitors, he said he forgot the keys and couldn't get inside.
About 20 years ago, Thayer attempted to set up another jet center at Allentown, Pa, with repercussions from that venture filling the archives for years at the Allentown Morning Call, a newspaper said to really have it in for him.
His business partner in the Allentown Jet Center was none other than racing legend Mario Andretti.  But Mario wasn't fast enough for Bill Thayer and after years of legal wrangling the two parted company. This deal left the locals paying Thayer in order to settle a lawsuit, which ought to interest the MOV Airport folks.
Now the MOV Airport Authority is in the process of trying to convince the voters to pass  a  new tax levy on the airport, to prop it up, and part of the argument for convincing voters to hike taxes on themselves is pointing out that business needs convenient airports for expanding and locating new jobs.  That task might be more difficult if the airport fails to receive it's $10,000 per month from the Parkersburg Jet Center, but no one should count Thayer out.  Its not a scandal yet.
Thayer, who is an able combatant, might have regret for tossing Kelli out and harassing her at her job at a local trucking firm.  This time, hell shows once again that it has no fury like a woman scorned.
However, if a blonde is soon seen driving a new Mustang through the streets of Marietta, down Pike Street and then up the side of the mountain to the leased ranch on the hill, a new chapter in this story will be written.   Or, Thayer could be loading up his computer, his trusty dog Sammy 2 and taking off for Indiana.
 Wherever he goes, the man who grew up in an orphanage in Richmond, Va. later tracked down his natural mother paid all of her bills until she died in a nursing home, will find adventure, opportunity and likely some gullible souls eager to invest in his schemes.

Ex-husband of Helgoe Says He Had Nothing to

 Do with Identity Theft Scheme

By Kenneth C. Rossignol
ST. MARY'S TODAY

UPDATE (Sept. 9, 2007)  ----  The former husband of a woman who has maintained a 15-year plus scheme of the theft of another person’s identity said his ex-wife only disclosed her real name after they had been married for 8 months.

“It seems like I get drawn into it, over and over,” said Trent Chapin.  “I had nothing do with what she did, she is a piece of work but because of my children, I can never really get away from her.”

Chapin said that he and the woman he knew as Kristen English met at a halfway house and after they were married he learned her real name was Kelli Helgoe.

“My youngest son would always believe what his mother told him and one day I took him to the health department and showed him the court record of her using someone else’s name right on his birth certificate, only then did he finally believe me,” said Chapin.

Chapin said that he had declined previous opportunities to answer questions about Helgoe due to a lawsuit he had with an Indiana car dealer whom he was successful in winning a large award from earlier this year. A jury awarded him $1.1 million which was later reduced to $100,000 by the Judge in the case.

Chapin said that he only used drugs when he was younger and is clean from using drugs or alcohol and he and his wife are very happy with their lives which are only punctuated with problems from his ex-wife.  

He denied allegations of abuse on his part or having supplied drugs to his stepson to sell in school.  "I never lived with them in Florida and records would show that."

Chapin said Helgoe had a series of relationships with wealthy men including two in Florida and one that he knew of in Indiana.

“I knew of one guy in Florida who was a well driller, had a ranch and was a real nice guy, he lived near Tampa,” said Chapin.  "She would manipulate any man in her life and her relationships were always rocky due to her being an alcoholic.”
She went through two stints of around 8 months with one of the Florida boyfriends, each time leaving and coming back to Chapin with the kids.

“I didn’t want her back but the boys are mine and I would have to take them all in, sometimes they just showed up in the driveway with a U-haul,” said Chapin.

One man whom she moved him with in Fort Wayne, Indiana refused to put up with her drinking and on several occasions threw her out of his home, paying for a hotel for her and her sons. He also tried to help her quit drinking and offered to pay for rehab to no avail. That man, who owned his own business, tried to be a strong father figure to her sons as well as supported her but in the end the allure of booze prevailed and ended that romance.

“She would go after guys that had money,” said Chapin. “She bled me dry and I worked hard for my money. She would manage to spend every penny.”

But Chapin says that he can never really get away from Helgoe. 

“She gets drunk and calls me up and raises hell,” said Chapin. “When she drinks, she is mean, once my youngest son called me on the phone to come get him saying that his mother was drunk and pulling his hair.”

“I paid for my crimes when I was young and I have changed my life but she is not a good person and she has brought me constant turmoil,” said Chapin.

Chapin insists that he had nothing to do with the scheme of identity theft.

“She said she did it because she was afraid to use her real name because she had jumped parole for embezzlement in Alaska and she was scared that they would come for her,” said Chapin.

Asked if he thought Helgoe would ever accept responsibility, he said flatly “No, she will blame it all on everyone else.”

Chapin says he is concerned about his children, who are now 14 and 15 and even called social services in Missouri to report her leaving them un-supervised.

“The courts always side with a woman,” said Chapin. “She didn’t quit her job to go to Missouri; she is still driving a truck.”

Chapin asserted that he and is wife had made adequate provisions for payment of rent and utilities at the rented home that she assumed the lease for in Missouri when they moved to be closer to his wife’s family in Maryland.

Helgoe's lack of truthfulness even extends to deceiving her first son about his father, said Chapin.  “His name was Fox and the O’Brien fellow adopted Josh, I give him credit, he even paid child support when they divorced.”

Another court hearing comes up next week in Indiana in the Helgoe identity theft case while Chapin’s reduced award is being appealed in federal court by the car dealer.

Chapin's Wife Says Kelli Had Stolen Identity

 Before Trent Chapin Came Along

related letters to the editor on this story

UPDATE (Sept. 8, 2007) Traci Chapin told ST. MARY’S TODAY in response to the continuing story on the case of Kelli Helgoe’s nationwide identity theft that her husband, and former husband of Helgoe, Trent Chapin is remorseful about his past but was not guilty of all that has been laid at his feet.

“There was no truth to it whatsoever,” said Traci Chapin.  “My husband paid his debt to society and Kelli has paid nothing.”

Chapin said that Helgoe’s son’s allegation in a previous part of the story, that the couple abandoned his teenage sons in Missouri in June is not true.

“I asked Kelli if she would take the boys while we move and she said that she had prayed that she could get them for the summer,” said Chapin.  “She asked if she could stay at the house after we left and the landlord agreed and we agreed that if she came there for a month, we would pay the rent and utilities and give her $3,000 for her time off from work.  She got greedy and demanded $5,000. I just refused at that point.”

“She then told us that she was going to make us wait until she got there before we could leave,” said Chapin. “I told her she would have to get there by June 6^th.   Trent had made arrangements for the boys to stay with the families of friends until she got there and we paid the rent until June 10th, the electric to the 15th and the other utilities until July. The boys were not abandoned and we made sure they were okay. We were told Kelli was back on the road and wasn’t with her sons.  She sent a woman in for 5 minutes two times a day.  The oldest boy has been in a lot of trouble and what he did was our concern.”

“Trent has remorse over what he did in the past, I knew about his past before I married him, we have been married for over a year,” said Chapin.

"When he met Kelli she had already assumed the name of Kristin English, that was the only name he knew until they had been married for 8 months,” said Chapin. “She went to the grocery store and was arrested for sticking two steaks up her shirt and he had sent her to the store with $500. The police called Trent to come pick her up.”

“Kelli would love for everyone to think that she was beaten and battered and she was the one who had spent time in jail for embezzlement,” said Chapin. “But she has never had to answer for stealing that woman’s identity and I don’t see how she has escaped responsibility for that all these years.”

Chapin said she has never seen any sign of abusiveness on the part of her husband Trent. “He has never raised a hand to me.”

“She still tries to run my husband’s life and when I heard her scream to him that she expected him to support her and their sons, I told her she is not going to talk to him any more, he has no problem in being responsible for his sons, but I am not going to let him pay anything for her, nor does he want to.”

“She will never give any comment on this story, because she was wrong,” said Chapin.

Son Says Mom’s Identity Theft Scheme Was
Masterminded by Abusive Step-father
UPDATE (Aug. 20, 2007) “He sent me to school with drugs to sell when I was in 5^th grade,” said Josh O’Brien, now 24 years old.  “We had to move after the school system expelled me, my mom lost her job and no school in the area would allow me to attend, we had to move out of state.”

The man who sent the 11-year-old to school to sell drugs was his step-father, Trent Chapin, a man that O’Brien said masterminded a 15-year nation-wide identity theft scheme which defrauded an Alaska woman, propelled his mother into a lifetime of misery and caused him to be tossed out of public schools in Florida.

O’Brien told ST. MARY’S TODAY on Sunday that he has decided to come out publicly to support his mother and to place the blame of her longtime scheme of taking another woman’s identity squarely on Chapin, where he contends the blame belongs.

“It all started when I was six years old and lived in Alaska with my mother when she met Chapin, I was too young to know better, I thought he was a good guy when he talked her into leaving Alaska and going to Fort Wayne, Indiana,” said O’Brien. “Then he talked her into taking Kristin English’s identity, I am convinced this was all his idea, he was a real creep.”

O’Brien said that living with Chapin was a constant diet of abuse towards him and his mother as well as living in a household with Chapin’s stashes of drugs easily available to children. “He used to just put his drugs under the bed or leave them out and available.”

O’Brien said that his mother, Kelli Helgoe, who had two sons with Chapin, finally had enough of him after she found his electronic rolodex and his list of girlfriends he was going with. He said she confronted Chapin about his infidelity and said Chapin became violent and held him and his mother hostage in their home and broke all the phones in the home with a hammer so they couldn't call the police.

“It was wild, I blocked out a lot, he tried to be nice at first but he was really abusive, he used to beat me with a weight belt on a regular basis, and I am positive that the identity theft was his idea, my mother was wrong, no doubt, but he talked her into it,” said O’Brien.

The life with Chapin for him, his mother and his two younger brothers was surreal, said O’Brien.

“Trent Chapin worked at one of the Indian Casinos and he would get really drunk at work and my younger brother would go there and drive him home, my brother was only 11 or 12 years old,” said O’Brien. “To make your child drive you while you’re drunk, its just sick.”

O’Brien said that he grew up wild but always managed to stay out of trouble, although was on the edge. “I am on the right track in my life, I graduated from high school with a 3.7 average, I am starting college part-time now and I love my girlfriend and my job, we have our own home and I don’t want to say anything bad about my mom, she was wrong for what she did, but I don’t believe any of it was her idea.”

O’Brien said that his mother tried to take her kids away from Chapin, that Chapin threatened her, even threatened to have her killed by white supremacist groups he knew from his stint in jail for armed robbery.

“He said he would hunt her down and kill her, she was really scared of him and tried to do everything to get away from him. She believed his threats as he was big racist himself.  He treated her like his maid and he beat her up on front of my brothers.”

The pattern of abuse and neglect towards his brothers continues to this day, said O’Brien, stating that Chapin left his teen brothers by themselves in Missouri and moved to West Virginia.

“He left them in a rented house with no power, no water and the rent unpaid and my mother had to quit her job and go there to take care of them,” said O’Brien, “then he called the police to slander my mother and try to get her and the boys in trouble, making up false reports.”

“What my mother did over the years was wrong,” said O’Brien, admitting that Chapin sabotaged a relationship she had a couple of years ago with a successful businessman that she met and fell in love with.  That relationship allowed her and her sons to have a fresh start, a good home and a lifestyle markedly different from what she had been living up to that time. Then Chapin came back into the picture, even getting a job with Kelli’s boyfriend.

But Chapin’s lifetime substance abuse and jealously wrecked her new relationship and has left her criss-crossing the nation as a long-haul driver.

“I am worried about my mom and my brothers and I just hope they are able to stay away from Trent Chapin,” said Josh O’Brien.

Chapin recently brought a federal lawsuit against an Indiana auto dealer and a jury delivered a $1.1 million verdict in his favor last spring, which has since been reduced by a federal judge to $100,000 and now that lower award is being appealed, bringing the possibility that it will evaporate.

“That is the best news I have heard in a long time,” said O’Brien.  “He doesn’t deserve a penny.”

Key figures in identity theft case have strange twist in case

UPDATE May 7, 2007 FORT WAYNE, INDIANA --- A man who figures in a nationwide identity theft case involving a long haul truck driver was awarded a huge sum by a federal jury in Indiana last month in a case he brought charging his former employer with reverse discrimination and retaliation.
Meanwhile the chief perpetrator in the 15-year long saga of fraud, the man’s ex-wife, continues to cart products and freight around the nation for some of the nation’s largest retailers including Budweiser and Wal-Mart.
This latest legal development marks the first time the man, Trent Chapin, has gotten some easy money without the need of a mask and a gun or winking as his ex-wife stole another woman’s name over the past 15 years.
Chapin’s chief distinction in life had previously been when he was convicted of two armed robberies in Alaska.
Chapin failed to win on his charge of discrimination but won on his complaint of retaliation and was given a verdict award from an eight member federal jury of $1.2 million. The auto dealership network, which owns a number of Indiana and Illinois auto dealerships had employed Chapin as a sales manager. The verdict may be overturned or reduced upon appeal by the defendant, according to the attorney for the defense, as cited in a Fort Wayne newspaper immediately following the verdict. The attorney for the firm was able to convince the judge to hear motions challenging whether the case should have ever have been given to the jury and to cap the award at a much lower figure. The Judge has withheld making a ruling on the judgment pending motions which are due to be filed on May 8th.
Chapin’s ex-wife, Kelli Helgoe, a driver for Werner Enterprises, a large national trucking firm based in Omaha, Nebraska, failed to obey a federal subpoena to appear as a witness for the defense and a bench warrant was issued for her arrest. When a federal process server attempted to serve Helgoe, she threw the subpoena on the ground and then drove her big blue Werner Enterprises rig overtop of the court papers.
“I informed Kelli Helgoe the documents were court papers for her to appear as witness to testify. At this point Kelli Helgoe interrupted me stating she did not have to take the documents and threw the envelope, containing the documents, to the ground,” reported the process server, Charles E. Slone II. Slone’s report included the name of a Wal-Mart guard who witnessed the incident.
Helgoe’s failure to appear may have prevented key evidence of the couple’s prior acts of fraud from being disclosed to the jury and thereby played a key role in the decision. The Federal Judge in the case issued a bench warrant for her arrest but later withdrew the warrant so to not further delay the court proceedings.
Helgoe, while married to Chapin, falsely used the name of a co-worker on her marriage certificate as well as birth certificates for two sons, fraudulently used the woman’s name to file bankruptcy and obtain credit.
A Werner Trucking manager may have shielded Helgoe from being served the summons and continued to assign runs when she was supposed to be in court. The firm hired to serve the court papers confirmed that the fleet manager was aware of the subpoenas, given notarized statements and acknowledged receiving copies of the court orders for Helgoe.
Werner supervisor Kevin Peterson was asked why he continued to give her deliveries to make as she ignored a federal subpoena requiring her presence in a federal court case in Indiana last month.
“I’m just a fleet manager, I can’t be responsible for the personal lives of my drivers, I have 70 drivers,” said Peterson. When asked if he was aware of an active criminal warrant for escape from the State of Alaska, Peterson referred the question to another Werner staffer.
A call to Werner’s public affairs office and to the CEO Greg Werner requesting comment was not returned prior to the filing of this update.
In March, Helgoe was the defendant in a civil case charging identity theft from Kristin English in the above matters, with Chapin named as her accessory. In that case, Helgoe refused to appear in court nor answer questions in depositions. The court decided in the favor of the plaintiff.

UPDATE (March 27, 2007)  INTERSTATE 95 ---  Just as a loaded tractor trailer pulls into the All-American restaurant at the Doswell, Virginia, truck stop, the waitress coming to work for the evening shift rushes in the door, trying not to be late after fixing dinner for her kids and her mother.

As the big blue rig gently rolls into a parking spot, the attractive woman who parked the powerful truck alights from the driver’s door and strolls into the busy eatery.

It’s just another night waiting tables for Jackie, hailed as the best waitress in America by one reviewer at an online site. And for Kelli, the truck driver, it is also just another night starring ahead at a steady stream of headlights and taillights, dodging the occasional tipsy motorist or leaping deer as she works her way across America with loads of freight.

But one of the burdens which Kelli always carries around with her is the knowledge that she has stolen another woman’s identity and used her name, social security number and even her credit, to buy cars, file bankruptcy and even bear two children.

From the theft of a co-worker’s name in Anchorage, Alaska in 1991, to the current times, Kelli Helgoe has paid very little for her criminal conduct while her known victims have suffered greatly.

While one can only surmise that the above scenario in Helgoe's daily life likely takes place as she drives her big rig, the truth about the tracks she has left in a nearly two-decade long odyssey of deception is at least partially revealed by court records.

According to court documents filed in Indiana, the last known home of Helgoe, the mother trucker from Alaska has used the name of Kristin English for all manner of purchases including two cars, and left English suffering from having her credit demolished as Helgoe allowed the vehicles to be repossessed.  

A court action filed in Indiana by English claiming she was defrauded by Helgoe has been met with silence at depositions or failing to appear for a hearing this past week. The economic losses for English could soar past $100,000.00 with more facts being discovered about the extent of the deception.

A marriage by Helgoe to Trent L. Chapin, a man with a record for armed robbery in Alaska, included using English’s name on the marriage certificate was compounded by the use of false names on birth certificates.  The court documents allege that Chapin was a co-conspirator with Helgoe in the identity fraud.

Chapin, who now works at a transmission shop and used car dealer in Walnut Shade, a small town in  Taney County, Missouri, told ST. MARY'S TODAY that some of the allegations made in English's lawsuit against his wife weren't true but failed to offer any details. 

Chapin was asked if he felt he was a victim of Helgoe who used English's name when marrying him.

Chapin was more concerned with finding out why Helgoe's identity theft spree which lasted more than 15 years would be pursued than in providing any information on his long relationship with her or answer questions as to whether he suffered financially from his marriage to her.

Chapin's record after his arrest and conviction for two armed robberies includes a DWI charge in Indiana in 2004. In one robbery, Chapin sent a 15-year-old boy into a store to rob it while he waited at the wheel of the getaway car, a white 1970 Ford Pinto.

Since Chapin is named in English's lawsuit and could become a criminal codefendant, may account for his lack of willingness to sign up as an official victim of Helgoe.  Chapin then referred further questions to his attorney.

According to a property manager for Branson Homes and Land, Chapin recently rented a single family home in the resort area of Missouri.  "He wrote me a hot check and then didn't pay his rent and then moved out," said the agent who said that she was out the money herself. "He won't answer the door or be the least bit cooperative," said the agent who said that at this time criminal charges have not yet been filed and are pending.

Chapin contacted ST. MARY'S TODAY on March 26th and screamed more denials of any criminal background, interspersed with obscenities, before hanging up.

Trent Chapin lived with Amber Okpara in New Haven, Indiana for about a year before Okpara moved out following a night of abuse and imprisonment. 

"I met Trent Chapin in the middle of 2005 and left him about a year ago," said Okpara.  "He would drink a gallon of Jim Bean a night and would sit up on the computer until 4 in the morning.  He would use drugs in the garage, you could smell the smoke and see the white powder, I was scared to death, he said if I called the police on him for abusing me and got him sent back to prison, that he would send someone to kill me."

"One night, I asked his boys to turn down the volume on the TV so I could get to sleep and he went nuts and grabbed me by the hair and slammed me down to the floor.  He then took all the phones in the house, including the cell phones, and hid them to keep me from calling 911. Then he kept me prisoner all night while he apologized to me and promised to never touch me again. When he let me loose, I got away and called the police and they promised to get back to me after they interviewed him and his sons."

Okpara said that Chapin forged her name on a rental agreement and constantly took money out of a joint account.  She said that he didn't own any guns as that could cause him to be sent back to prison but he admitted having his father buy a gun in his son's name but had the gun stashed at his father's house with plans to obtain the gun later.  She said that Chapin admitted to having participated in using Kristen English's name on the marriage certificate with Kelli Helgoe and birth certificates of his sons in order to keep Kelli from going back to jail in Alaska. 
"He told me that they used Kristin English's name to file for bankruptcy," said Okpara.

Living in Florida, Nebraska, Indiana and Alaska, Helgoe’s opportunities for more identity fraud are as endless as the interstate highways on which she travels.

While other identity frauds involve the illegal use of the names and credit card information of others, Helgoe, according to court documents, used the name and credit of English, even to the point that when the IRS caught up with her, they didn’t seize the funds of Helgoe but went instead after the real Kristin English, who didn’t have a clue as to what the revenue agents wanted.

Helgoe was reached through her employer, by leaving a message with Werner trucking, for which she drives and when asked for comment on this story simply denied she was the same Kelli Helgoe.
Police in Alaska and Indiana are currently investigating the case of fraud and of escape.   Watch for updates on this story.
Anyone with additional information on this person can contact staff@stmarystoday.com