924Board.org

[ideola]

This is gonna be long. I am laying out from the very beginning the chronology of events that are germane to recent postings concerning suspicious and questionable activity on this and other forums. In this post, I exhaustively outline my previous dealings with Mr. Johnston, as well as the multitude of in-person meetings I have had with various members of this forum and the Porsche community at large. To be clear, I have two aims:

1. To re-establish my credibility, which has been called into question by many skeptics, by referencing the multitude of face-to-face interactions I have had with upstanding members of this board and the Porsche community in general. If you have questions regarding the veracity of any of my claims, I encourage you to enquire directly of any of the screen names listed in this post.

2. To make it crystal clear to anyone who has been following recent developments exactly what is at stake. As I’ve posted elsewhere, this about much more than just a bogus $50 transaction on eBay.

Undoubtedly, there will many who will read this account and scoff at me for being a sucker. I don’t care. Maybe I am…but I do know that hindsight is 20/20. Regardless, if nothing else good comes of these recent developments, perhaps my disclosure here will help someone down the road avoid being the next victim. Even better, perhaps it will stimulate some discussion around better ways of vetting out who gets to post for sale items on the forum. I have reflected a lot on that topic and will start a new thread shortly with some initial ideas. In the future, any questions regarding this matter will result in me directing you to this post.

I acquired my first 924 in Aug 2004. Here is my first introduction to Mr. Johnston. Notice the offer to sell something immediately.

By October 2004, I was hooked on 924s, and began searching for another p-car.

After six month of intentional hard driving (to find out what might break before turning the car over to my son), I blew the headgasket, which is how I got to know ‘924RACR’ in person. He assisted me in the top end rebuild, which I completed over the winter of 2004-05 with the help of everyone here in Jan 2005. Notice MJ is quick to chime in.

Here was the beginning of my undoing, where I first jumped to Mr. Johnston’s defense. And by the way, I have subsequently apologized to D Hook for my reaction to him in this post. It is also worth noting that the entire sophomoric exchange that took place between Mark and Mikri (yeah, remember him?) were subsequently redacted. This is one of the instances where Mark threatened physical violence. Unfortunately, the evidence has been tampered with.

To be frank, in light of current circumstance, it is embarrassing to read some of what I posted in this thread and how naïve I was at the time. It makes me look like a fool. No matter. I know I’m not one, but if others can learn from my mistakes, I’m willing to let it all hang out there. Here I am stupidly providing another recommendation for Mr. Johnston.

After thinking about 914’s and 944’s I settled on a 928 which I purchased in Dec 2004 and drove back from Cali in Feb 2005.

In March I met up with Lizard in the Vancouver area: That’s when I arranged to acquire Lizard’s 4.7L Euro top end, which is still sitting in crate waiting to be mated to the 5.0L stroker set up I had prepped by Musante Motorsports. It was also during that trip to BC that I mentioned my reservations about Mr. Johnston to Lizard.

On the way back to Seattle I stopped in Ferndale WA to check in on Mikri. Haven’t heard from him since.

In Apr 2005, I acquired the car that became the primary donor for what we all now know as “Dan’s Ultimate 931 Build”, or otherwise referred to as the 931 UWB (ultra wide body).

In April, the Omaha crew, Mr. Johnston and I discussed going to Tweekfest in Effingham IL.

In early May 2007, I began thinking about tearing into the 931 UWB project. ‘jpab924’ of Crown Point IN chimes in, which is interesting considering that later that year, Mark swung a deal with him that ultimately ended up with me acquiring an add’l 1980 931 rolling chassis. Interestingly, I never plated or registered that car, even though I have the title to this day. The VIN number for that car is 93A0152797, and the title has someone else’s name on it who doesn’t live in IN or MI. So even though I paid for it and have legal possession of it, the title does not bear the name of the person from whom I bought it. This substantiates my point that successfully buying a car from someone does not validate their identity. But back to the chronology.

It was shortly thereafter that Mr. Johnston approached me a barter proposal. At the time, he was contemplating a startup business primarily around duplicating fiberglass body parts. He was interested in using the panels on my UWB to make molds. His idea was to remove the panels, cast molds that could be used to make and resell duplicates, and then put the car back together for me, but he need someway of bootstrapping the operation. I was not the only person he approached with this scheme. ‘gla924sem’ lost an entire race season due to a similar scheme in which Mr. Johnston was to do some work on Gary’s race car in exchange for being able to make a copy of the roll cage. Incidentally, I have also met ‘gla924sem’ in person when I bought a roll cage from him back in 2007 (don’t recall exactly when).

In any event, regarding my agreement with Mr. Johnston, I agreed to bootstrap his venture by allowing him to duplicate my body panels, along with providing some other resources, specifically a pop-up camper that I no longer needed, which I agreed he could sell to generate cash. On 11 May 2005, we entered into an agreement whereby he agreed to the following:
• Assist with removal, transport, and reinstallation of engine
• Removal of existing rear quarter body panels
• Installation of new rear quarter body panels
• Perform body work, including repairs to front valance, prep work, priming and painting
• Miscellaneous fabrication, such as fixed headlight brackets
Mr. Johnston agreed to render those services in exchange for my 1996 Jayco pop-up camper valued at $3,500. He signed a work order that constituted a legally binding agreement, indicating that he would execute the work in good faith.

Later in May, I acquired a Weissach Special Edition which I sold to my nephew sometime in Oct 2005. On Memorial Day, I organized a Porsche Parade followed by a BBQ at my house. I was still unsuspecting of Mr. Johnston, and in fact, he drove the 931 UWB car, which hadn’t been disassembled just yet.

First weekend in June 2005, I accompanied ‘924RACR’ at Waterford Hills and shot pix and more pix. Second weekend in June was the Tweeks Fun Fest, and this is where I first met in person the great guys of the Omaha crew. It was at this event that Mr. Johnston, myself and the Omaha crew shared dinner, as D Hook mentioned.

If I’m remembering correctly, it was sometime during the summer of 2005 that I acquired the aforementioned 931 rolling chassis from ‘jpab924’. My activity on the board hit a bit of a lull during the late summer and fall of 2005, as I was traveling a LOT for work, and just trying to keep the two 81 NA’s operational. In any event, who can forget this lovely exchange between Kenodog & Mark. At this point, I was growing concerned about the lack of progress on my project. But I still stupidly defended Mark. I was excited about the idea of a vibrant (rather than anemic) 924 aftermarket, and the prospect of helping it along blinded me to what was going on. The only thing that was in it for me was 1) getting my project done; and 2) having a local resource that could help me with future projects.

In any event, I stupidly waded into the Kenodog / MJ fray, trying again to be the peacemaker and do damage control to prevent Mr. Johnston from alienating his clientele. In retrospect, this was obviously something he didn’t care about, since his interest was finding victims, not clients. As an aside, if you read my comments in that thread, and contrary to Rasta’s assertion, I did NOT ruthlessly criticize Kenodog. I still feel that my comments in that thread were cogent and well argued. Regardless of Mr. Johnston’s involvement in that discussion, I still stand by the general points that I made.

Back to the timeline: sometime late in Oct or Nov, with my car sitting at Mr. Johnston’s house, we FINALLY got task one on the work order completed: pulling the motor. So, things were at least progressing, at least enough to keep me off my guard.

Somewhere during the next several months, the whole Hausbrauen concept started brewing between Mr. Johnston and one Mr. Wes Stansbury of Florida. Since I was not privy to those conversations, I can only speculate as to what was going on between the two of them.
In November 2005, I acquired a rebuilt snailshell from a 944 guy in CT, which has subsequently been fitted with the LSD unit I acquired from ‘jazzerpet’ (Omaha crew) by Dan Kantrow, a local PCA member who is very active at Waterford Hills.

I also acquired Ray Wolf’s 1980 931, which I have subsequently dubbed the 941 due to the plethora of 944 parts on it. In mid-December, my best friend and I flew out to Salt Lake City, where Ray delivered the car to us. We subsequently drove it back to MI. Along the way, the water pump literally froze up, what a story that was!

Now comes the fun part. My classic car insurance was up for renewal on 01 Jan 2006, so I didn’t put the 941 on the policy until then. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to me, unlike regular car insurers, Hagerty do not automatically add the new cars to an existing policy when you submit a change. They have to go thru their process before they’ll give you an endorsement. That usually takes ~3 weeks. Mon 02 Jan I submitted my request to add the car to my policy. That same day, I drove the car to Waterford to show it to Mr. Johnston. At the intersection of Elizabeth Lake Road and Crescent Lake Road , the fuel pump relay decides to let go. I call Mr Johnston, who at the time lived literally within walking distance. My buddy Larry comes out too to help get the car to Mr. Johnston’s driveway (where, btw, my 931 UWB is still sitting without engine, but no other work completed). Since I was flying out to Florida the next day for my company’s annual kickoff, I had little choice but to leave the car there. Mr. Johnston promised offered fix the fuel pump relay while I was gone.

Sat 07 Jan 2006 on my way from Key West to the Miami airport, I get a call from Mr. Johnston. The 941 has been stolen. To make a long story short, Mr. Johnston had an associate, one Mr. Chris Olson. Mr. Olson was purportedly a machinist who had agreed to do barter work for Mark in exchange for Mark fixing his broken down 1977 NA. According to the police report that Mr. Johnston filed, the car was stolen by Mr. Olson on Wed 04 Jan as it sat running in the driveway.

According to information we’ve been able to piece together, Mr. Olson was a narcotics addict. He took the car (with or without Mr. Johnston’s permission is still in question…an important point to remember later) and traded it for drugs with a drug dealer up in Flint. The Flint police pulled the car over for improper plates, arrested the driver for drug possession, and impounded the car. Somewhere along the way, one of the idiots (still don’t know if it was Mr. Olson or the drug dealer) drove the 941 into a guard rail, wiping out the left rear quarter panel, crushing the beautiful body work Ray had done.

I recovered the car from Flint impound on Fri 14 Jan 2006. I received my classic car endorsement from Hagerty on Mon 17 Jan 2006. Because the car was uninsured at the time of the theft, I was now the proud owner of a $6000+ repair bill.

As the case progressed thru the Oakland County court system, according to the prosecutor, due to uncertainty as to Mr. Johnston’s role in the episode, there was not sufficient evidence to convict Mr. Olson of grand theft auto. Instead, Mr. Olson was convicted of “Improper use of a vehicle” and sentenced to restitution and probation. He was ordered to pay $6,6669.62 in restitution to me to cover the uninsured damage done to the vehicle. On 19 June 2007, I was issued a check in the amount of $152 from Oakland County. Mr. Olson was subsequently found to be in violation of his probation and as far as I know is now imprisoned. Given that Mr. Olson is an unemployed machinist in the economically depressed metro Detroit area, who also happens to be a convicted criminal with a habitual narcotics problem, it is doubtful that I will ever see another dime.

Completely coincidental to all of this going on, my now ex-wife filed for divorce on 24 Jan 2006. I was subsequently slapped with a restraining order which effectively froze my assets, meaning no $$ spent without documentation, no liquidation of assets, no nothing. I informed Mr. Johnston that I would not be able to do much with regard to the project given my situation. I further advised him that I would be willing to move the 931 UWB off of his property if he needed the room, but that I wanted the body work he still owed me to be completed. He said he would get to work on it.

In the meantime, in late 2005 I had already made arrangements with Holbrook Racing, Diamond Pistons, and Performance Crankshaft to start work on my stroker build. Because those funds were committed I was able to continue the development plans despite the divorce situation. I had made all of the arrangements with all three vendors, and did all of the driving and most of the talking when we set up those meetings. Mark had come along for the ride. He apparently had other deals pending under the Hausbrauen banner, including custom pistons for ‘tom cooper’. Somehow, my piston order got put on the Hausbrauen invoice, so when I attempted to pick them up, Diamond insisted that it go thru one account. Mark went out and picked them up. This was sometime around late June or early July 2006.

Once I had the engine components, I questioned Mr. Johnston as to why my project had not progressed. He complained that he couldn’t do the body work until we had the nose panel and Dzus fittings, which seemed logical to me. Since he had my pistons and I needed to reimburse him for those, he suggested that we just run a credit card transaction thru Hausbrauen, which could be done to cover the pistons and the Lindsey Racing header panel and dzus fittings, which he claimed he could get at a discounted price. On 13 July 2006 I performed a credit card transaction using his PayPal virtual terminal at his residence through the Hausbrauen account in the amount of $1354.00.

Fast forward to September 2006. Still no progress on the car, still no body work, and no parts had showed up. I had my pistons, crank and block, but the chassis was in his garage, including all of the body panels. At that point I begin to grow gravely concerned. I asked him where my stuff was. He blamed it on Wes, his erstwhile partner in the Hausbrauen fiasco. I filed a complaint with PayPal and the Credit Card company, but I missed the 60 day window, so now I was stiffed another ~$650 for the stuff I never got. At this point, I feared the worst.

The rest of the history is fairly recent and most of you know about it through the Street Legal threads, which Mark Berman (aka Sparky) and I orchestrated. When I finally recovered the 931 UWB, Mr. Johnston had taken the liberty to strip it of all of the valuable parts, including the K&N cold air setup, a good vented nose panel with inserts, both of the excellent condition leather seats, the steering wheel, the center console including all gauges, the a-pillar gauge pod including gauges, the heater box, the bumpers, and the entire five lug suspension. All of these parts he had systematically stripped and sold to fund his other activities, with exception of the K&N filter which is still on his blue 931 (license plate SICK931).

The result of the Street Legal effort was essentially this: at the advice of counsel that I coordinated, Sparky and I issued separate demand letters to Mr. Johnston outlining the terms and conditions of a settlement.
Sparky’s demand letter
Sparky’s settlement agreement
My demand letter
My settlement agreement

The terms of the that agreement required Mr. Johnston to meet ALL demands by 5 PM EDT Mon 15 Oct 2007, or he would be held in breach. As an incentive, we agreed that we would not publicly discuss the issue ON THE CONDITION THAT MR. JOHNSTON MET ALL OF THE PROVISIONS OF THE AGREEMENT. We explicitly indicated in the terms and conditions that if he failed to comply, we would hold him in breach, and would use all means at our disposal to seek satisfaction, including releasing information on these forums, to media outlets, to the IRS, and to the Oakland County prosecutor’s office.

Mr. Johnston met with me in my attorney’s office on 21 Sep 2007 and signed two settlement agreements, which were notarized. On that day, he delivered some of the goods to me that were specified in my agreement. Sometime shortly thereafter, he arranged to have two chassis delivered to my home that were to include the remainder of his obligation. THEY DID NOT. Furthermore, there are other provisions of the agreement with which he failed to comply, and Sparky has not received so much as a bolt or washer of the goods he was to receive as his settlement.

Subsequent to this activity, I learned even more. Mr. Johnston had ordered four additional sets of custom pistons from Diamond Racing on the same day that I ordered mine. Each set was in the neighborhood of $750. When he went to pick up the pistons, Mr. Johnston presented the receptionist with a personal check, which she foolishly accepted. That check, as it turns out, was drawn on an empty bank account in the name of Mr. Johnston’s wife. He essentially walked out of Diamond Pistons with over $3500 worth of custom parts for free. He subsequently received payment from me and the other recipients (including ‘tom cooper’) of those pistons under the Hausbrauen account, but never paid Diamond. In addition, he stiffed both Crankshaft Craftsmen and Holbrook Racing on over $1000 worth of labor for crank and block work that he never paid for. It took a LOT of explaining on my part to get the proprietors of those businesses to even consider talking to me again. Fortunately, I am now back on good terms with all three.
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ideola's garage
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[Rasta Monsta]

Sounds like quite a few felonies there. Odd he remains unencumbered by criminal charges. . .the DA's Office here loves characters like that.
_________________
WTF, (your name here)?!

• Shaggy (1980 931) - Mine
  
• Red (1987 924S) - Hers
  
• Gonzo (1979 924) - Gone

[mr. dude]

It looks like you got burned pretty bad by this guy. I can understand your stress. I went ahead and sent you the proof of my identity. I hope this will all blow over soon and we can go on talking about our cars instead of all of this craziness.
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Black 944 (Sold)
Red 1981 931 (Wrecked and Sold)

[D Hook]

(sigh) What a nice trip down memory lane.

Too bad most of the memories SUCK! (Some good ones though. Had fun changing that water pump and everyone trying to figure out if we dropped that nut down the turbo or not.)

Comprehensive, that's for sure. Must've taken some time researching all those posts.
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'80 924 n/a

[Mike924]

[Chrenan]

Dan, I completely support you or anyone else calling out a suspicious character. This board is a hugely valuable resource, if it becomes a regular hang out for theives, the value of the board will plummet.

That being said, there were a few shocking points in your post:


1. You drove a car without insurance? Seriously? Regardless of the Hagerty policies being different than other insurance companies and types, it is your responsibility to have insurance before you take a car on the road (pink slip in hand or whatever the US equivalent is). Whether you wreck the car or someone steals it and wrecks it, you are playing with a loaded gun. You're very lucky that lesson only cost you $6000, if you had killed someone while driving you could have been looking at a multi-million dollar tab.

2. You're leaving cars at someones house who you barely know? Seriously? There are only 2 friends I've trusted with my cars, both of whom I've known for 10+ years, I've worked with them, spent time with their families, been on vacation with them. Thats how well I have to know someone before I trust them with a financial asset. End of story. Some guy with common interests in Porsches and a desire to tinker is someone I'd talk to, and have a beer with, but hell would freeze over before I left any of my cars with them unsupervised. You are way too trusting.


Both lessons I'm sure are burned into your head now, shame they were both so costly. Good luck confirming Mr. Dude's identity and keep up the good fight!
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1987 951 ROW

[flosho]

Wow. I can't believe MJ hasn't been brought to justice, or at least curb stomped for the people he has wronged. You think with the number of people he has screwed there would be more than enough people looking for him to catch him. isn't he?



No panty bunching going on now...
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1981 Porsche 931 -- "Escalation of Commitment"
-Megasquirt 1v3.0 EFI/EDIS conversion, 250# springs, 17" turbo twists, 26.8/18 sways

[ideola]

Chrenan, thanks for the comments. A couple of follow ups.

The car was insured on my general liability policy that I carry for my daily drivers. I did not cover theft, fire, collision on that policy for that specific car due to the cost, and the fact that I was planning to insure it literally within days of returning to MI on my Hagerty policy. At the time I drove the car to Mark's, I thought it was ALSO insured on the Hagerty policy. On a general insurance policy, at least in MI, as soon as you submit your name address and VIN to an existing policy, the car is endorsed. One of my best friends runs his own insurance agency and handles ALL of my insurance needs, and I have ALWAYS handled adding cars to my policy in this manner. Because I had an existing Hagerty policy with 3 other cars on it, I thought I was ensured once I submitted the information. Even my agent told me I was covered, and then had to call me back with egg on HIS face because Hagerty refused to cover the damage, claiming the endorsement wasn't issued until after the theft had occurred. How much of that is typical insurance company big business doing what they can to shirk payment vs. reality, I'll probably never know. In any event, if I would have crashed the car or injured someone, I was covered on my general liability policy thru Citizens.

Regarding your second question, at the time I left my car at Mark's house, I thought I knew him pretty well. As I documented above, by Jan of 2006, I had made several overnight road trips with Mark, and we had spent many days together running around interviewing potential vendors all over Detroit, wrenching at my house and his, exchanging parts, etc. That is why I trusted him and why I genuinely considered him my friend, and even posted as such on this board on multiple occasions. I never thought he would have betrayed me the way he did. I would have left my car at Larry's but he didn't have the room.

Lessons learned
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ideola's garage
Unique Products, Used Parts, Group Buys & Downloads for the Porsche 924, 944 and 928
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[ideola]

[Mike924]

Why wait?

What does it matter what he may or may not call himself on various bulletin boards?

Prosecute now, I say!
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1985 Porsche 924 'Lux', Kalahari Beige (my ex)
1993 Porsche 968 Coupe, Midnight Blue, 6 spd

'There is no substitute for a little grease under your fingernails.' - Chrenan, 924board

[tuurbo]

[ideola]

[Mike924]

Cool.
_________________
1985 Porsche 924 'Lux', Kalahari Beige (my ex)
1993 Porsche 968 Coupe, Midnight Blue, 6 spd

'There is no substitute for a little grease under your fingernails.' - Chrenan, 924board

[flosho]

[ideola]