LaRouche Aides Charged With Bilking Elderly

State authorities charged today that the 16 followers of political extremist Lyndon LaRouche Jr. indicted in a $30-million fund-raising scam often preyed upon lonely elderly people.

Three of those indicted are still being sought.

Virginia Atty. Gen. Mary Sue Terry, who is heading an investigation into the alleged securities fraud, said about 3,000 people across the nation loaned money to the organization--including one person who turned over $1.5 million--in exchange for short-term promissory notes.

Of the total $30 million, only $250,000 has been repaid, Terry said.

“The elderly as a group are particularly susceptible to certain types of fraud,” she said. “Typically, they live alone and are lonely.”

Thousands Said Cheated

According to court affidavits filed by Virginia State Police last October, the scheme cheated thousands of people through fraudulent fund raising.

A typical tactic was to take a person’s name at an airport then telephone him or her, asking for loans from a few hundred dollars to $5,000, with promises of high interest rates in return.

Police said the caller generally focused on telling potential lenders that banks are unsafe, that the International Monetary Fund is conspiring to collapse the U.S. banking system and take it over and that all banks are involved in laundering drug money.

On Tuesday, a Loudon County grand jury issued 78 indictments against the 16 people, from all levels of the LaRouche organization, Terry said. Five groups linked to LaRouche also were indicted, and Terry said she will ask the State Corporation Commission to shut down the five corporations.

LaRouche spokeswoman Dana Scanlon said the grand jury indictments were political intimidation.

She said that, as with other presidential campaigns, some LaRouche loans had been repaid late but that “every effort is being made to make good” on them.