April 29, 2015 opening paragraphs from CHESTERTON TRIBUNE Former Duneland real estate agent Don Johnson-- already charged with 16 felony counts-- has been charged with three more.
The latest counts are of a piece with the first 14, filed in March 2014: Johnson is accused of selling an unregistered security, of transacting business as an unregistered broker-dealer, and of committing fraud in the sale of a security.
All three counts are Class C felonies-- as are 15 of the 16 previously filed counts-- punishable by a term of two to eight years.
According to the probable cause affidavit filed by an investigator with the Indiana Secretary of State's Securities Division, in September 2013 Johnson and his son, Donnie Jr., leased a home on Sherwood Ave. in Portage to a man who agreed to pay a monthly rent of $1,000 to $1,200. At the time, the affidavit states, Johnson told the man that Donnie Jr. "was at the meeting as a licensed real estate agent because Johnson Sr. was no longer a licensed real estate broker in Indiana."
(That is true. Johnson's broker's license was permanently revoked by the Indiana Real Estate Commission (IREC) in 2012, after Johnson failed to pay the first installment of a $15,000 restitution ordered by the IREC as part of a settlement reached with Johnson, to close a 33-count administrative complaint filed against him two years earlier. That complaint accused Johnson of engaging in material deception, of being "unfit to practice due to failure to keep abreast of current theory," and of "professional incompetence," among other things.)
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