Colorado man sentenced to six years in prison for stealing nearly $1 million from friends

A Denver man who misrepresented himself as an investment broker was recently sentenced to securities fraud and theft and ordered to repay $966,045 he obtained from dozens of friends and acquaintances.

Jason Lobins, 48, pleaded guilty and was sentenced Aug. 8 in Denver District Court. A month earlier, he pleaded not guilty in a similar case in El Paso County. That case is headed to trial in October.

According to court documents in the Denver case, Lobins began telling friends in March 2019 that he was certified with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and had established a wealth management fund. The fund would have an initial total value of $650,000, Lobins reportedly told investors -- all of whom he knew. 

Lobins provided investment agreements and promised monthly statements on the earnings, yearly tax documents, yearly audits of his investments by a third party, and projected a 28% return on investments for the fiscal year 2019, according to the arrest affidavit.

 Lobins started receiving funds from his investor friends the next month. 

The scheme began to unravel as soon as the first victim attempted to make a withdrawal at the end of that month. 

Jared Stoots of Denver gave Lobins $80,000 in September 2019. 

"He was a neighbor and a family friend. My daughter and I spent Christmas Eve and Thanksgiving with him," the year before things turned sour, Stoots told CBS Colorado.   

Lobins signed a promissory note to repay the full amount in 10 days or suffer a 5% late charge every day. The money never arrived. When contacted, Lobins told Stoots the transfer was due to a bank error - a line he used on almost every victim in his case, according to the affidavit. 

Later, Lobins told Stoots he was suing the bank to unfreeze his assets. But Denver investigators never found evidence of such a lawsuit being filed. 

Nor did they find any evidence that Lobins had an investment broker's license or had registered an investment fund.

To compound matters, Stoots was on the verge of buying his first home.. 

"When I tried to get the money, he came up with all these excuses, and I lost the house a week from close," Stoots said. "And he went radio silent."

Stoots persisted and eventually filed a civil suit against Lobins. 

"I could accept that the money was gone," Stoots said. "I couldn't accept doing nothing."    

When Lobins didn't show up, the judge awarded Stoots more than half a million dollars in a default judgment. 

None of that money has made its way to Stoots, either. And Lobins, at the time, walked freely in the neighborhood despite Denver's criminal investigation. 

"I thought this was pretty open and shut," Stoots said. "He had a warrant, doesn't drive a car," and should be easy to arrest. "That was five years ago."  

It was during this time that Lobins made death threats against Stoots in conversations with mutual friends, according to Stoots. Recordings of the alleged threats were provided to Denver prosecutors, but discounted since the threats were not delivered directly to him, Stoots claimed.

"I just hope the next person in my situation has a little more support," Stoots said.

The case turned last year when Stoots sought publicity for the case in the media. Five other victims "came out of the woodwork," as Stoots described, including one who was a friend of Lobins' since grade school. Investigators accelerated their efforts, and Lobins was arrested at a local bar. 

"I think I was so emotionally exhausted by the time everything was validated" by the arrest and the charges from the Colorado Division of Securities. "He had told me he had cancer, was bringing up his children....We had just been through so much. It's really difficult going from trying to help somebody to realizing nothing they say is true."  

The plea deal reached between Lobins and Denver's prosecutors was against the wishes of all six victims, Stoots said. And he doesn't agree with the sentence, either, considering the judge removed more than a year from the six-year prison term for the time Lobins had already spent behind bars for the case. 

On top of that, the alleged death threats have Stoots feeling uneasy about Lobins's eventual release. He said he has installed a home security system, purchased a gun, and no longer lets his daughter walk home from school: "I'll be looking over my shoulder."  

In the upcoming El Paso County trial, Lobins is accused of approaching a longtime friend in 2023 and claiming he was dying of cancer, as stated in the arrest affidavit. Lobins told the man that he had money to give away and wanted to invest in the man's coffee shop in downtown Colorado Springs, and potentially buy the friend a hotel. Lobins instructed them to pay fees to start the joint business venture.

The man and his wife sent Lobins more than $9,000 before losing their faith in him. According to the affidavit in the Colorado Springs case, Lobins put off their complaints by complaining about his health and cell phone. 

Lobins pleaded not guilty to theft in July in that case.