Latest Ponzi scheme victims: the Amish

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091223/NEWS02/912230365

But the legal case filed in Wooster [Ohio] represents an unusual contrast. Durham is a flamboyant collector of rare art and up to 70 vintage cars who lives in a 22-room mansion near Fortville [Ind.]. Wooster is a factory and farming town at the center of Ohio's horse-and-buggy-dependent Amish community, the world's largest.

Although no one has identified any of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, two actions give people in Wooster and surrounding towns reason to believe some Amish families may have been caught in the Fair Financial case.

First, the lawsuit was filed by an established Wooster law firm known to Amish families.

And, second, a legal procedure appears to have been employed to conceal the identity of 20 plaintiffs. Amish not only favor homespun clothes, and horses over cars and tractors, but their faith also discourages individuals from settling disputes in court.

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"It doesn't strike me as anything unheard of, but investing with a finance company is unusual,'' said Glenda Lehman Ervin, a principal in Lehman's Hardware, a Kidron [Ohio] retailer of old-fashioned home goods such as butter churns.

Amish families traditionally bought land and livestock. But as land prices rose and farms for sale became more scarce, Ervin said, some Amish funded their own businesses, such as producing the churns.

This, in turn, put families in need of banks and securities as places to stash cash.