Marfleet v. Hardin, et al. was filed in the Western District of Tennessee on October 20, 2021. The complaint alleges Defendants operated a nationwide real estate Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors by falsely promising “secured” real estate investments and above-market rates of return in exchange for capital.

Plaintiff Barry Marfleet (“Plaintiff”) is an individual investor. Defendants are James Hardin and his two companies, Defendant Hardin Enterprises Inc. and Defendant MRH Holdings, LLC, (collectively “Defendants”).

The complaint alleges Defendants solicited investors by placing advertisements with various media outlets, such as the Internet and radio stations, and conducting live “informational presentations” where Defendants represented that they were able to provide “turn-key” real estate investment services.

Plaintiff alleges Defendants acted in concert to falsely represent investor funds were being used to purchase, renovate, and sell properties. Plaintiff contends he was told that he would receive varying percentages of annual interest paid monthly until the properties were sold, at which point, Plaintiff would receive his principal investment plus a certain percentage of the profits.

However, Plaintiff alleges that instead of Defendants using his investor funds to purchase, renovate, manage, and sell residential real properties, they were used to make partial distributions of “profits” to earlier investors in a Ponzi-like fashion. The complaint alleges that when the number of earlier investors outweighed the number of new investors, the scheme collapsed.

The complaint asserts one count of fraudulent inducement and one count of intentional or fraudulent misrepresentation and seeks $292,443.12 in compensatory damages and attorneys’ fees and costs.