Sports Final Wednesday, March 28, 2001

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WIN! Con man

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SUITE bilked TRANSIT
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DETAILS INSIDE

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News, A3

Cliff Erickson stole more than

the heart of a beautiful B.C. NORTEL
SIHOTA
divorcée. He ripped her off for
$92,000. Only then did she CHOPS
LANDS
learn her lover was a
convicted con artist who had 5,000
TV JOB
News, A2
Ric Ernst — The Province
Denise Santillana was romanced by
Clifford Erickson — then fleeced.
defrauded some of B.C.’s
best-known business people
Peter Clough, A6-7
— The Province
Cliff Erickson, con
man extraordinaire.
JOBS
News, A12
 A6 The Province • News
He duped B.C.’s high
rollers out of millions
He’s the most brilliant con
artist B.C. has ever known.
Some of the top players in
Vancouver’s business world fell
for his scams without a second
thought. He took them for
hundreds of thousands,
possibly millions, of dollars.
Yesterday,
outside a
downtown
courtroom,
his final
victim — a
divorced
mother of
two fooled
by his
PETER promise of
CLOUGH marriage —
waited
patiently in the hope of seeing
the man who wiped out
everything she owned sent to
jail.
True to form, Clifford Earl
Erickson failed to show up for
his sentencing.
So who is Clifford Erickson?
And why did so many high-
profile Vancouver businessmen
make such willing targets?
Province columnist Peter
Clough unravels this
charismatic Christian’s 30-year
web of deceit.
enise Santillana was in love.
D For a whole year, she
dreamed of a glamorous
future with Cliff Erickson.
The man who asked for her
hand in marriage was not just rich
and good-looking. He was deep —
with a passion for life’s spiritual
dimension. After the wedding,
they were going to live in San Fran-
cisco where Erickson owned a
number of properties. Most
important of all, her new love
promised to be the perfect men-
tor for her children.
“I was blind,” Santillana said yes-
terday outside the Vancouver
provincial courtroom where Erick-
son was due to be sentenced for
defrauding her of everything she
owned — some $92,000.
“I thought I knew this person,”
she said. “But I didn’t know him
at all.”
Anatomy of a con artist
Con artist Cliff Erickson scammed huge amounts of money from
some of B.C.’s top businessmen during a 30-year web of deceit.
When Erickson proposed to her
in 1997, Santillana had no idea that
he was a married man. But the
biggest shock came when she
learned that her fiance had
already been convicted of
defrauding some of those high-
profile “friends” he had told her
about.
A decade ago, everything was
going his way.
When Erickson wasn’t looking
after his hotel chain in San Fran-
cisco, he liked to entertain his
friends and associates at the
Shaughnessy Golf and Country
Club, a short walk from his home.
He chose his business partners
carefully.
There was Dick Richards, pres-
ident of the Greater Vancouver
Real Estate Board; BCAA chair-
man John J. Brown; Dean
Lapointe, a former French army
officer and president of the B.C.
Real Estate Council; and Bob
Gaglardi, son of former highways
minister “Flying Phil” and owner
of the Sandman Inns.
They tried not to look
impressed as Erickson tossed out
stories about skippering the
yacht belonging to his good pal
George Gund, owner of the San
Jose Sharks. Then there were his
business dealings with former Dal-
las Cowboys quarterback Roger
Staubach.
They never suspected a thing.
Neither did thousands of B.C.
teenagers. They remember Cliff
Erickson as a charismatic Chris-
tian leader who engaged them in
vigorous debates about the poten-
tial of the human spirit during
their vacations at Club Malibu, a
youth adventure camp up the B.C.
coast.
To them, the tall, athletic direc-
tor of the Christian organization
Young Life of Canada was an inspi-
ration. He had genuine star
appeal.
Some of it rubbed off on Mike
Dowty.
In 1972, Dowty was an impres-
sionable young man in his early
20s. He was hired as a salesman
at MacKenzie Management, a Van-
couver real estate company in
which Erickson was a partner with
Dick Richards, then president of
RIPPED OFF
DEAN LAPOINTE
‘taken like altar boy’
the real estate board.
Dowty was soon invited to join
the group of young people who
gathered at Erickson’s Point Grey
home once a week to talk about
philosophy and the meaning of
life.
“It opened up a whole new
world for me,” says Dowty. “I’d
never thought about all that stuff
before.”
Dowty was thrilled at how his
boss included him in high-pow-
ered meetings with people like
Bob Bentall and David Lam, who
went on to become B.C.’s lieu-
tenant-governor.
Within a few years, Dowty had
branched out on his own and was
well on the way to becoming a mil-
lionaire through his seminars on
home-buying and investing.
Compared with Erickson, he
was still a minor-league player.
Over lunch at the Shaughnessy
Golf and Country Club, Dowty
heard that his old friend and men-
tor was now running a California
hotel chain with 3,500 employees.
It wasn’t until 1995 that Erick-
son’s world of penthouse suites,
flashy cars and power breakfasts
with men in high places began to
come undone.
Dowty had started a develop-
ment company along with Erick-
son, Dean Lapointe, CEO of God-
dard and Smith International Real-
ty, and John J. Brown, chairman
of the BCAA and president of
Pacific Opportunity Ltd.
Together they formed GroWest.
Wednesday, March 28, 2001
JOHN J. BROWN
signature forged
The four men stood to make mil-
lions from a contract to market
360 condos in Calgary on behalf
of Alberta developer Fred
Schickedanz. There was talk of
another condo deal in Hawaii.
As Dowty shuttled between Van-
couver and Calgary hiring sales
people, he grew suspicious that
Erickson’s $200,000 start-up
investment in the company had
yet to materialize. With the condo
contract about to fall apart, it was
Dowty who noticed something
odd about two of the signatures
on a promissory note Erickson
had forwarded to Schickedanz.
Lapointe and Brown were hor-
rified when they saw that Erick-
son had forged their signatures in
a desperate move to keep the deal
alive. They promptly made
appointments with the RCMP’s
commercial crime unit.
The investigation uncovered a
web of fact and fiction that fooled
some of the sharpest minds in B.C.
Erickson was charged with 20
counts of fraud.
In 1998, Crown prosecutor
Stephen Cooke told a provincial
court judge how the high-rolling
Christian had ingratiated himself
with “a sophisticated echelon of
Vancouver business people” and
defrauded them by lying about
non-existent investment sources.
He outlined how Erickson used
his bogus friendship with Sharks
owner George Gund to earn a posi-
tion as vice-president with North-
land Properties, owned by Bob
Wednesday, March 28, 2001
Denise Santillana laments her relationship with conman Cliff Erickson outside court yesterday.
Gaglardi and his son Tom, when
the company was looking for
investors on a proposed tower for
the Sandman Hotel in downtown
Vancouver.
Erickson had apparently met
Gund once or twice but was never
a genuine friend. But it was
through his association and the
promise of financing that North-
land was able to secure bridge
financing of $500,000 from the Fed-
eral Business Development Bank
while they waited for Gund’s $10-
15 million investment.
Bob Gaglardi was assured of
Gund’s commitment to the pro-
ject in strange voicemail mes-
sages. On one occasion, Erickson
and Gaglardi were sharing a hotel
room in Toronto. Gaglardi
stepped out of the shower to learn
that Gund’s lawyer had just
phoned with information on how
the deal was to be structured. The
lawyer apologized for his husky
voice — the result, he said, of
throat cancer.
Taxes Frozen.
Priority is Health Care.
Taxes second or third lowest in Canada for most families.
The Province • News A7
Anatomy of a con artist
Ric Ernst — The Province Colin Price — The Province
Businessman Mike Dowty was duped by his old pal Erickson.
Cooke told the court that the Girard. Erickson told the judge that he how much money Erickson
message had been left by Erick- And he used his association had become addicted to a false scammed from him — but
son himself. with Gund again to obtain a persona. “Somehow I had the idea believes it was at least $40,000.
Eventually, the Gaglardis $145,000 boat from Michael that if I wasn’t in the Top 10 I had “What else he got from us, who
became suspicious about the lack Jensen, owner of the marina at the to appear that I did and it went all knows?”
of direct contact with Granville Island Hotel. the way through,” he said. At the For Dowty, the association with
Gund. When they Jensen, too, was taken time of his sentencing, Erickson Erickson was crippling. Within
called him, they were in by a voicemail mes- was working as a part-time coffee months, he was out of a job, flat
devastated to learn sage, supposedly left server and had become involved broke, suicidal and sleeping on
that Gund had won a by the hockey mag- with a Christian men’s group. the beach at Dundarave. He’s now
cease and desist nate. This time it was He was sentenced to two years on the rebound — back in the real
order against Erick- from his private jet — less a day. It was while fighting to estate market and writing a home-
son to prevent the hence the distant, stay out of jail that he romanced buyer’s guide.
Vancouver business- funny-sounding voice. Denise Santillana. “I’ve tried to put Erickson
man from using his Erickson’s lawyer To most of his victims, Cliff behind me,” he says. “I’ve tried to
name for raising pointed out that he Erickson is an embarrassing name forgive him, but that’s hard.”
investment funds. had actually been suc- from the past. But they all agree On the latest case, Erickson will
At the end of the cessful in the hotel in their praise of Erickson’s bril- appear in court for sentencing on
day, according to industry up until liance as a con artist. April 12. Denise Santillana, now
Cooke, the Gaglardis about 1990, with prop- “I was taken like an altar boy,” bankrupt, will be there again.
were cheated out of GEORGE GUND erties in Sacramento, says millionaire Dean Lapointe. “I want to hear what the judge
$111,000. no friend of Erickson San Francisco and “He was my friend and I trusted has to say,” she says.
Cooke also Winnipeg. He him and I didn’t want to believe
described how Erickson falsely described him as a man with “a that he was robbing us and every- Call Clough and he’ll tell your
claimed to be brokering a deal to deep-seated personality disor- body else,” says Dick Richards, story to the rest of B.C. ■ e-mail
develop the Vogue Theatre into a der,” an over-achiever who was who retired this year as president pcluff@pacpress.southam.ca
concert hall in order to defraud unable to come to terms with the of Colliers International. ■ Tel: 605-2047
Vancouver Mercedes dealer Roger idea of failing. Richards says he’s lost track of ■ fax 605-2759
BC Budget 2001 is out. Get more
information on BC’s finances, the
economy and Budget priorities
at www.bcbudget.gov.bc.ca
or call 1-866-356-5941
Ministry of Finance and
Corporate Relations
 A8 The Province • News
World News
Baggage guy
gets surprise
trip to Mexico
DALLAS — A baggage handler
took an unexpected trip to Mexico’s
Puerto Vallarta after he was locked
in the cargo compartment of a
Boeing 727 while loading luggage.
He was trapped inside the rear
cargo hold of the Champion Air
charter plane just before its 5:57
a.m. takeoff from Dallas/Fort Worth
International Airport. “It was not
exactly comfortable, but it was a
pressurized area,” Elizabeth
Costello, a Champion
spokeswoman, said yesterday. “He
is fine.”
U.S. hostage freed
MANILA — Troops and police
stormed a jungle camp yesterday
to free U.S. hostage Jeffrey
Schilling, 25, from Muslim rebels
who had threatened to behead
him as a grisly
“birthday
present” to the
Philippine
president. He was
in good health.
Schilling, a
Muslim convert,
was taken by the
SCHILLING rebels after he
visited their
camp on Aug. 31. He was
accompanied by his wife, Ivy
Osani, the cousin of rebel leader
Abu Sabaya. She was later freed.
Twins fight ends
LONDON — Britons Alan and
Judith Kilshaw yesterday gave up
their battle to adopt the U.S.
“Internet twins,” closing a chapter
of a transatlantic wrangle and
opening the way for the nine-
month-old girls’ return to St. Louis
where they were born and where
their estranged biological parents
are each seeking to regain custody.
Twins battle on
SINGAPORE — Heavily sedated
baby twin sisters Ganga and
Jamuna Shrestha were in stable
condition but had light fevers
yesterday, two days after doctors
finished a marathon operation to
separate their brains. “Both . . .
are running a slight fever due to
infection,” hospital spokeswoman
Ho Lai Fung said.
No heart disease
BELGRADE — Physicians
examining Slobodan Milosevic
yesterday found no evidence of
heart disease after the former
Yugoslav president was rushed
from his jail cell to a military
hospital complaining of severe
chest pains.
— News Services
Con man who would
Clifford Earl Erickson, the smoothest
con artist B.C. has ever known, sat
with his head in hands in a
Vancouver courtroom
yesterday, waiting to be
sentenced for defrauding
PETER Denise Santillana — a
CLOUGH woman he had promised to
marry. The sentencing was adjourned.
But since Province columnist Peter
Clough’s story two weeks ago, more
victims have come forward — and his
brother claims the biggest victim of all
was Erickson’s own mother.
teve Caines picked up The
S Province and shook his head
in disbelief.
One of his workmates sat down
and cried.
There was no mistaking the guy
on the front page — their new
boss, Cliff Erickson.
Now, as the nine or so employ-
ees of Universal Signs in Maple
Ridge gathered round, the man
who had recently become co-
owner of the struggling company
was revealed as a master con
artist, once convicted of swin-
dling hundreds of thousands of
dollars from some of the leading
players in Vancouver’s business
community.
They read that Erickson had
failed to show up in court the pre-
vious day for sentencing on his
most recent conviction — and
they knew exactly why. He had
been with them, addressing a
staff meeting, giving them his
word that the bouncing cheques
were a thing of the past.
They’d lost more than their
wages. Some of them had racked
up thousands of dollars for sup-
plies on their personal credit
cards. Sales manager Raj Singh
had even given Erickson a $50,000
personal loan.
The new boss resigned his posi-
tion shortly after our story two
weeks ago.
On the phone from Bellevue,
Wash., Lloyd Erickson is able to
laugh when he hears about the
audacity of his older brother’s lat-
est scheme. He has spent a life-
Executive of GroWesT Realty Investment Services: (from left)
Cliff Erickson, CEO and co-founder; Dean Lapointe, president;
Mike Dowty; John J. Brown, chief financial officer.
time observing Cliff’s amazing tal-
ent for worming his way into the
lives of friends, relatives and
strangers — and taking them for
all they’re worth.
He was, after all, Cliff Erickson’s
first victim, bilked of his spend-
ing money at the age of nine.
Lloyd says the handful of peo-
ple who have pressed charges are
among “hundreds and hundreds”
of victims — cousins who hand-
ed over their life savings, women
romanced for their money, mil-
lionaire real estate brokers and
hotel owners lured into ventures
“backed by leading sports fig-
ures,” well-meaning Christians
taken in by his mesmerizing per-
formance as a director of Young
Life of Canada.
The victim who has lost the
most, he claims, is their 85-year-
old mother, Olga.
Lloyd Erickson says his wid-
owed mother, who lives in White
Rock, is now “broke” — even
though his parents had built up
a retirement nest-egg of between
$1.5 million and $2 million.
He alleges Cliff ended up with
Con man Cliff Erickson asked Denise Santillana to marry him —
most of it. “He always had a
scheme he needed it for — a new
house or something. He’d say he
needed it for one thing or other
and then show up with a new car.
I have lists of hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars in promissory
notes he gave them.”
Lloyd says his father, a suc-
cessful contractor, gave him a
“heartbreaking” letter shortly
before his death three years ago,
accusing Cliff of bringing about
the elderly couple’s financial ruin.
The most tragic part of all, says
Lloyd, is that his mother refus-
es to let go of her belief that Cliff
can do no wrong — even though
he’s been virtually disowned by
the entire family, including his
own two children.
“We have to support my moth-
er now,” says Lloyd. “She should
have one-and-a-half to two mil-
lion in the bank. There’s nothing.”
He says his mother’s obsession
with Cliff was something he and
his sister got used to at an early
age, when the young family
moved from their Peace River
farm to a house in New West-
Friday, April 13, 2001
minster. They grew up poor. But
Lloyd says Cliff, as a teenager,
was always spending money —
heaps of it. He soon figured out
that his brother had a deep-root-
ed compulsion to view everyone
he met as money on legs.
“He just can’t help himself,”
says Lloyd. “It’s just everybody
he knows, he takes from — sim-
ple as that. I used to watch him
operate when I was young. I used
to tell people. They’d just say I
was the jealous brother.”
There was plenty to be jealous
about.
Bill Kushnir, who once played
for the B.C. Lions and is current-
ly vice-chairman of the Delta
School Board, was Cliff’s high
school science and physical edu-
cation teacher.
He says he remembers the
young Erickson as one of the
most brilliant students he’s ever
taught.
“He was Mr. All-and-Every-
thing,” says Kushnir. “He could’ve
been a professional football play-
er if he’d wanted to. You’d show
him different pass routes. Man,
you just had to show him once
and he knew how to deke the
defensive players.
“Academically, he was tops —
90 percentile group.”
It’s this paradox that puzzles
Lloyd Erickson the most. Why
would a man with so much star
potential need to lie and cheat his
way to the top?
Lloyd says he’s confronted his
brother with the question many
Friday, April 13, 2001
bilk his own mother
then he bilked her out of everything she owned, some $92,000.
times. “If it got through to him
that he was hurting people, he’d
be surprised,” he says. “But it
doesn’t get through.”
In the 1980s, Cliff Erickson
owned the McTaco fast-food
chain in Vancouver and was a
partner in a successful real estate
company. At the same time, as a
director of Young Life of Canada,
he was regarded as an inspiration
by thousands of Lower Mainland
Christian teenagers who were
mentored by him at Camp Mal-
ibu, up the B.C. coast.
Some of those kids, however,
invested in one of his many enter-
prises. “He came by one day in
this really flashy boat with all
these beautiful girls,” says a for-
mer Young-Lifer who asked not
to be identified.
“So he gave me a ride. We went
to the other end of the inlet.”
The trip cost him $5,500 — the
amount he invested in one of
Cliff’s “companies.”
According to Lloyd, Cliff was not
above taking money from his own
two children, now on hostile
terms with their father.
He says Cliff’s wife Lee, his high-
school sweetheart, has been
almost as reluctant as his moth-
er to see what the man was real-
ly all about.
Two years ago, Cliff asked
Denise Santillana to marry him.
During the “engagement” he
bilked her of everything she
owned — some $92,000.
Lloyd says his brother was see-
ing at least one other “fiancée” at
the same time — while convinc-
ing his actual wife that he’d been
out building his new line of busi-
ness, selling coffee machines.
Santillana had no idea that in
reality Cliff was fighting to stay
out of jail after being convicted in
1998 of defrauding such leading
businessmen as Bob Gaglardi,
owner of the Sandman Inn and
other Vancouver hotels; John J.
Brown, former chairman of the
BCAA; and Dean LaPointe, former
president of the B.C. Real Estate
Council.
Lloyd Erickson says he intends
to be in court for his brother’s
sentencing May 28 on the Santil-
lana case. He wants to see the
judge send him to jail — though
he expects Cliff to do “the cry-and-
beg-forgiveness routine.”
“It’s so tough when it’s your
own brother,” he says. “Yet I look
at the list of people he’s hurt and
I’ve talked to them and their
brothers and sisters, too, and he
has no concern for them. I would
sooner see them protected rather
than Cliff.”
Meanwhile, Tracy Moulaison,
an accountant, phones to tell me
how Cliff Erickson has helped her
through tough times recently.
“He’s like a dad to me,” says
Tracy.
Now, she says, he’s offered to
help her start her own business,
a new-age bookstore.
“He’s given me some good
ideas,” she says. “I really sincerely
don’t think he would ever hurt me
or ever take advantage of me.”
Cliff Erickson leaves Vancouver provincial court yesterday.
‘Lying was easy because I
would even lie to myself’
After a lifetime of lying and
cheating, Cliff Erickson says
he’s learned how to feel
remorse.
“I’ve hurt a lot of people and
I’ve been forced — I mean
forced — to really get to my
feelings and it’s rotten and
regretful,” he says. “I’m sick to
my soul about it.”
Erickson, once a major play-
er in the Vancouver business
world, now lives with his 85-
year-old mother in White Rock,
having been isolated by the
rest of his family — including
his wife and two grown chil-
dren.
He says the hurt he’s caused
them has been the most
painful thing he’s ever had to
face.
“It’s a load that’s really hard
to carry,” he says. “One of the
things I’ve learned is that
remorse is one of the heaviest
burdens of all. If you feel it, it
overwhelms you.”
He says allegations by his
Gerry Kahrmann — The Province
brother Lloyd that he took
between $1.5 and $2 million
from his elderly parents are
“completely untrue.” He says
he never took more than than
$90,000 from them and insists
that his mother, currently on
vacation in the U.S., is equally
puzzled by Lloyd’s claim.
But he acknowledges that he
tried to cheat his way to the
top after his legitimate busi-
ness ventures failed in the mid-
1980s, including three hotels in
California and his chain of Van-
couver fast-food restaurants,
McTaco’s.
“Lying was easy because I
would even lie to myself,” says
Erickson. “I was two people —
double-minded.
“Now I’m just a person who
cares for people — and that’s
what’s so hard when I look and
see what I’ve done.”
His biggest wish now is to be
accepted once again by his
family. “There’s nothing I want
more,” he says.
The Province • News A9
National News
Immigration
rejects idea of
search warrant
OTTAWA — A proposal that
federal officials obtain search
warrants before opening mail
coming into Canada has been
rejected by the Immigration
Department. Privacy
commissioner George
Radwanski made the proposal
last month following a complaint
by the Canadian Bar
Association.
Deportation reviewed
QUEBEC — A man accused of
inciting a 1994 massacre in
Rwanda is not a war criminal
and can remain in Canada, a
federal judge said yesterday as
he urged a review of the man’s
deportation case. Leon
Mugesera, who had been
ordered deported by two
immigration board tribunals,
cleared a major hurdle in his bid
to stay in Canada but could still
eventually be forced to leave.
Guards sick of jail
TORONTO — Ontario jails
have become overcrowded,
violence-plagued, disease-ridden
“hell-holes,” says the union
representing their guards.
Conditions are so poor, says the
Ontario Public Service
Employees Union, there has
been a huge increase in the
amount of time guards take off
work. But Corrections Minister
Rob Sampson said conditions
will soon improve as new
facilities are being built to
alleviate the overcrowding.
Trio accused of leak
MONTREAL — A veteran
Montreal police officer, his now-
retired partner and a third man
were arrested yesterday and
accused of leaking confidential
information to criminal bikers as
well as the Russian Mafia.
Nurses to book off
TORONTO — The union
representing 40,000 nurses
across Ontario is so angry about
a contract offer from the
province’s hospitals that it has
threatened a day-long protest
next month.
The move, which came after
talks between the Ontario
Nurses Association and the
Ontario Hospital Association
collapsed earlier this week, is
necessary to show government
“that we’re very serious about
our workload and about our
working conditions,” said union
president Barb Wahl.
— Canadian Press