'Too good to be true': Those who invested with former Copley coach share their stories

At the urging of former Copley High School basketball coach Mark Dente , a West Akron man took out 20 loans that totaled nearly $500,000.

He signed them over to AEM Services LLC, Dente’s real estate investment company.

For three years, Dente made the payments on the loans and the man was able to withdraw funds.

That stopped in April 2022 when Dente’s business began spiraling , with talks of it being a Ponzi scheme.

“What about all these damn loans?” the man asked Dente.

He said Dente responded, “None of them are in my name."

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” the man said.

The man, who is 61, took $200,000 from his retirement funds to repay what was still owed on the loans. He returned to work to replace his lost retirement money.

The man, who asked that his name not be used, is among 800 people who invested $220 million with Dente and his company, thinking it was being used to buy, renovate and sell homes.

Instead, the money was treated by Dente and his associates as a “personal slush fund,” attorneys allege in court records.

Dente used the money for mortgage and college tuition payments, to buy a vacation home and a house for his business partner, and to pay for a boat, jet ski, medical bills, gas, groceries, and meals at local restaurants, according to court records.

Dozens of investors sued Dente in Summit County Common Pleas Court in the spring of 2022. The court has appointed Mark Dottore, a receiver in Cleveland, to try to recoup the money they lost.

Dente is being investigated for possible criminal charges by the state and the FBI.

Dente, who doesn’t currently have an attorney, has said in court documents that he didn’t act “maliciously, fraudulently or intentionally,” though he conceded that “inadequate controls and accounting practices may have led to comingled funds.”

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The Beacon Journal sought out investors who entrusted their money to Dente and were willing to share their experiences. Some, including an Akron man who filed for bankruptcy, a Richfield attorney who signed over his IRA to AEM, and a local female business owner who invested big — and lost it all — weren’t willing to talk.

Among those who were, a few didn’t want their names used, either because of embarrassment or out of concern for the ongoing investigations and court cases.

Others, however, were fine with their names being used. They wanted to share their frustration with a process that has dragged on for more than two years with no money returned and no charges filed.

“My confidence in a resolution is: zero,” said Ian Spellman, 40, of Canfield, who invested $69,500 with AEM. “Nothing has happened. We have proof all this happened. Dente is out there. The justice system is flawed when you need it to work for you.”

Spellman, who is a mortgage loan officer, is among several people in his family – including two of his brothers and his parents – who invested with Dente and let their investments roll over. When they realized the company was going south, they asked to withdraw their money.

So far, they have gotten nothing back. They still hope for a resolution, even if it doesn’t involve the return of all their money.

“I want something to happen,” Spellman said.

The investors also hope that others will learn from their mistakes and not fall prey to similar schemes.

“If it’s too good to be true, obviously it isn’t,” the West Akron investor said.

Lorain County man borrows against his home to invest with Mark Dente

A Lorain County man had invested in real estate before when he heard about Dente and his company about three years ago.

He said Mark Gathagan, vice president of capital investment and finance with AEM, told him about two parts of the business – one that involved buying and rehabbing homes and flipping them and another that involved buying properties from banks at discounted prices and selling them.

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The man made several investments in the flipping business that totaled $175,000. He later invested in short-term promissory notes toward the bulk-property or wholesaling business.

He was earning 15% per year, paid quarterly. He kept the accumulating funds with AEM, not withdrawing any money.

When he invested in the short-term notes, he borrowed $200,000 against his home, which was paid off at the time.

He started getting suspicious in late 2021 and early 2022 when he realized he wasn’t earning what was promised on his investments. He said he asked Gathagan and got excuses like the banks being behind and the COVID-19 pandemic causing delays.

When he realized that AEM was in trouble, he demanded his money be returned. He gave a one-month notice — six times.

He said he never got back any of the $388,000 he invested. He also had to pay off what he borrowed against his home.

“I paid for my home and paid for half again,” he said.

This turn of events was made worse by the fact that this was the second time he’d lost money to a scheme like this.

“When you add up what I lost, I lost everything I ever made while I was working,” said the man, who’s in his 60s. “I lived my life out of a suitcase to make a better living. In the end, it got me nothing. I was taken by shady people.”

He works in the technology business and had hoped to be retired by this point in his life. Instead, he’s still working and isn’t sure when he can retire.

“There’s been a whole lot of lost sleep,” he said

He said he’s haunted by the question: “How could I have been so stupid?”

He said he doesn’t understand what’s happening with the receiver’s efforts or with the criminal investigations.

“I feel left dangled by the whole process with no information, no nothing,” he said. “I feel like I’m flying blind.”

Spellman family members and friends invest with former Copley coach

Ian Spellman heard about AEM from the friend of a co-worker.

Because Spellman was a mortgage lender, he was familiar with the real estate world. In September 2021, he talked to Gathagan, who explained AEM would buy a batch of distressed homes, fix them up in 20 to 30 days and sell them in 45 to 60 days.

“That was part of the allure,” said Spellman, who is married and has three young children. “A quick process. Get in and out.”

Spellman made several investments and — happy with the profits he was seeing — kept his money rolling with AEM. His goal was to try to double his investment.

Spellman said he was the guinea pig for his family members, who planned to invest as well if he was pleased.

“Let me be the test and try it,” he recalls telling them. “If it works, it works. Don’t risk the money if you don’t have the money to lose.”

Marie and Lloyd Spellman, Ian’s parents, invested. Levi and Jordan Spellman, Ian’s brothers, also joined in, as did one of their cousins and several family friends.

When the Spellmans became concerned about their investments in early 2022, they asked for their money back but didn’t get it.

The Spellmans were among the investors who sued Dente and his company. That lawsuit is among the many that have been stayed while the receiver does his work.

Altogether, the Spellmans and their friends are owed more than $3.5 million by AEM, according to court documents.

Levi Spellman, 43, who was in grad school at the time, talked his fiancée, Jessica Hilgendorf, into kicking in half of a $25,000 investment. They never withdrew the money, instead letting it ride.

Levi Spellman said he and Hilgendorf, who were about to buy a home in Colorado Springs and start a family, felt the loss.

“It’s had an impact on us, for sure,” said Levi Spellman, who is a public affairs officer for the Bureau of Land Management.

Levi Spellman said the loss also hit his parents hard, who were preparing for retirement and are concerned about health care emergencies. He said losing $25,000 took away their discretionary money.

Jordan Spellman, Ian and Levi’s brother who lives in Wilmington, North Carolina, and invested $150,000 in AEM, alerted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the FBI.

“It is upsetting – to say the least,” said Jordan Spellman, 37, a psychiatrist who is married with one child. “How would anybody feel to have $150,000 in cash disappear out of a bank account tomorrow morning? No genie stole it from me, but I was still being told one thing — and something completely different was going on.”

The Spellmans have completed recently questionnaires sent to AEM investors by the Ohio Department of Commerce Securities Division and the FBI. They hope Dente and his associates will face charges.

“They are walking around, living in houses that they stole money from good, hard-working citizens to purchase,” Jordan Spellman said. “They are enjoying family events and holidays with friends – spending the money they stole.”

West Akron man applies for loans to invest with Dente

The West Akron man who took out loans — and had to pay part of them back himself — said he was enticed into investing with AEM by Dente.

“The story he gave me was, ‘If you have good credit, you should invest with me. It won’t cost you anything and you’ll make a lot of money,’” the man recalled. “That’s how it started.”

He said Dente, whom he knew to be a winning basketball coach at Copley High School, came to his home. Dente put him in touch with a woman named Jocelyn who ran his credit report, then said he needed to pay off his credit cards.

He said Dente wrote him a check to cover the $5,300 he owed on his credit cards. This boosted his credit score and Dente said he could now apply for loans.

“Is this legitimate?” he recalls asking Dente about the loans. “By that time, the train had left the station.”

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Armed with information he had provided, Jocelyn began applying for loans on his behalf. By the end of the month, he had nearly $500,000 in his account.

Dente asked him to make certified checks out to AEM in staggered amounts. He took checks to Dente until he’d given him all the loan money.

“I don’t know what he was doing with the money he was getting – probably paying off those other ones,” the man said of the other investors. “I don’t know how it worked. I never asked, though.”

He said Dente made the minimum payments due on the loans every month until the spring of 2022. He said he made a few draws from the account, using the last one to pay the loan payments that were due.

Concerned that it was his name on the loans, the man withdrew money from his retirement funds to pay off the rest of the loans.

“It’s just unfortunate I had to spend my retirement to get me out of hot water,” said the man, who is married with three kids.

He went back to work and has since retired for a second time.

AEM investors learn tough lessons

The AEM investors say they have learned valuable lessons.

The Lorain County investor said he’s going to stick with stocks, bonds, mutual funds and CDs for his investments.

“I don’t think I’ll buy anything that’s not just mainstream,” he said.

He said investors might just get a 5% return on an investment with a company like Fidelity but they are at least unlikely to lose that 5%.

The West Akron investor said he’s going to only trust his money to reputable investors and listen to his “gut.”

“I trusted him,” he said of Dente. “I turned a blind eye. I should have followed my gut.”

Levi Spellman said he and his brothers came from meager means but made something of themselves.

“We all worked hard, took chances, sacrificed things — maybe traits that are the same things that made us an easy target for this kind of fraud,” he said.

Levi wonders if what happened with AEM is a symptom of a larger problem with a society that entices people to take risks they shouldn’t to try to get ahead.

“It’s just reinforced my worst fears about who we are as a nation — what our institutions really protect and stand for and that doing all the things right isn’t enough,” he said. “We should be looking to fix the circumstances that put us here in the first place.”

Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com , 330-996-3705 and on Twitter: @swarsmithabj.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: 'Too good to be true': Those who invested with former Copley coach share their stories