Not everyone who invested with Wayzata businessman Tom Petters lost money.
But those who made millions before Petters businesses collapsed will likely still face court efforts to take back that money.
During testimony Friday in Petters' fraud trial in federal court in St. Paul, a key associate acknowledged that at least two investors made as much as $300 million each over several years from the Petters operation.
Under questioning by Petters attorney Jon Hopeman, Robert White, the former chief financial officer of Petters Co., Inc. (PCI), agreed that profits were made by people who invested early in the program, which fell apart last year in the wake of a federal criminal investigation.
Hopeman elicited testimony specifically about Opportunity Finance, which White acknowledged made $300 million from trades with Petters. And he didn't dispute Hopeman's calculation that Epsilon, an Illinois hedge fund previously operated by co-defendant Greg Bell before he created Lancelot Investment Management, also made $300 million.
Minneapolis-based Opportunity Finance is owned by the Sabes family, which is involved in a variety of companies and whose family foundation has a history of charitable contributions, primarily to Jewish causes. Robert W. Sabes, 69, a former owner of Schieks Palace Royale, a Minneapolis strip club, now lives in Las Vegas.
Doug Kelley, the court-appointed receiver overseeing the liquidation of the Petters personal and business estates, has said he may eventually go after profits earned by those early investors, in a move known as a "clawback," to repay investors that lost money in the allegedly fraudulent Petters deals.
"If you can show actual knowledge or constructive knowledge of the fraud, you can take the money," Kelley said in a previous interview. "If someone took out more than they put in, you can take that because it's a phantom profit."