His longtime business partner, Deanna Coleman, was on the witness stand again Tuesday, but it was Tom Petters who did most of the talking.
On long segments of surreptitious tape recordings made in September 2008 and played in federal court, Petters talked like a businessman at the end of his financial rope and even expressed concerns that he could be a mob target.
The tapes, recorded two days before federal authorities raided his businesses and home last year, revealed that Petters feared that two of his investors had mob connections and might want him dead.
"Nobody's paying us," Petters said on the 30-minute recording made Sept. 22, 2008, by federal authorities with the help of Coleman. "I can't stand lying to people every day."
"We're at a breaking point," Petters said on the tape. "I can't stand where we are. ... None of us are OK. ... We've got problems. I'm trying as hard as I can to find a way out of this. I don't think we can all think clearly anymore."
He said he was afraid that Robert W. Sabes, 69, formerly of Wayzata, and his son Jon R. Sabes, 43, of Wayzata, who authorities say had invested $17 million to $19 million, might kill him.
"Jon Sabes needs to calm down a bit," Petters said, adding that he believed Sabes was connected to organized crime. "They are bad, bad people. I think he'd kill me."
Debt of nearly $19 million