ANOTHER SELF-SERVING CLUSTERF**K FROM “NON-APPEARING” STEVEN INGERSOLL: Convicted Felon (And Former Charter School Diva) Enlists Brad Habermehl, A Proven Storyteller, In A Futile Attempt To Save His Sorry Ass From A $332,541.94 Default Judgment

(Hint: It’s not going to work.)

“It is undisputed that the Ingersoll/Smart School Entity Transfers were paid to the various Smart Schools Entities in complete disregard of whether the recipient-entity was entitled to the payment and in complete disregard for the corporate forms of those entities. Mr. Ingersoll readily admitted that the Technical License Agreement was between Debtor FSM and SS, Inc., but the payments issued by FSM were paid to SSM, Inc. and SSMBC, Inc., at different times depending on when the payment was issued.”

“Here, damages are easily measured since the damages recoverable against the Smart Schools Entities equal the total sum of the Ingersoll/Smart School Entity Transfers. The amount of those improper transfers is established by the well-pleaded factual allegations in the Complaint, and by the sworn testimony and related admissions provided by the Defendants themselves.”

March 21, 2023; PLAINTIFF’S BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR ENTRY OF DEFAULT JUDGMENT AGAINST THE SMART SCHOOLS ENTITIES

Oh, boy — here we go again.

Bay City, Michigan’s Steven Ingersoll, an erstwhile charter school honcho, convicted tax cheat, and master of real estate sleight-of-hand is apparently too strapped to hire a decent mouthpiece, so he’s taking the DIY route.

Not a good look, dude.

In an April 24, 2023 “Brief In Opposition” of a motion for a “Default Judgment” filed March 21, 2023 on behalf of Traverse City’s Independent Bank by attorney Sandra Hamilton, Ingersoll trots out former Michigan resident, optometrist Bradley Habermehl as his savior — apparently forgetting that Habermehl bumbled his testimony during Ingersoll’s federal sentencing process.

During his December 8, 2015 appearance on the stand, Habermehl squirmed as he was confronted with evidence that revealed his clandestine, behind-the-scenes effort to raise funds for a “private school” project on behalf of his “friend and colleague”— the federally-indicted Steven Ingersoll.

Oops!

Yes, as the President of the Grand Traverse Academy, Habermehl was covertly rattling the tin cup for a business venture he’d secretly formed with Ingersoll. In fact, the email fundraising activity initiated by Habermehl after Ingersoll’s April 9, 2014 federal tax fraud indictment and departure from the Traverse City charter school continued well past his federal tax fraud conviction.

And, here’s another shocker: one of the “partners” identified by Habermehl, Bruce Harger, was at the time the head of Lake Superior State University’s Charter School Office — the authorizing body overseeing Ingersoll’s Bay City Academy!

It pays to have a guy on the inside!

You can read all the dirty details (including excerpts taken directly from official federal court transcripts) at this link.

So now that we’ve established that Habermehl (shown above in Grand Rapids during last year’s annual Michigan Vision Therapy Study Group (MVTSG) Meeting, and below in a group photo with Steven Ingersoll) is likely not an “independent witness”, we’ll return to his recent effort on behalf of Ingersoll.

Fat…meet fryer!

Ingersoll’s April 24, 2023 response to Independent Bank’s March 21, 2023 brief in support of an entry of a default judgment against Ingersoll’s “Smart Schools Entities” includes Habermehl’s January 27, 2023 “Affidavit” and notarized copy of a May 4, 2012 “Reimbursement Resolution” issued by the Grand Traverse Academy Board of Directors. The “Reimbursement Resolution was issued before Habermehl joined the board.

Holy shit, Ingersoll and Habermehl are recycling their bullshit — in federal bankruptcy court!

A bit of history: as a member of the Grand Traverse Academy Board of Directors, optometrist Bradley Habermehl took an oath of office on May 2, 2013, assuming a fiduciary responsibility for the finances of the public school academy. (He must have crossed his fingers behind his back.)

And, as the Board’s de facto spokesperson beginning March 2014, Habermehl was the public face of the Traverse City charter school during Steven Ingersoll’s years-long financial fraud scandal.

In its theory of his 2014 tax fraud case, federal prosecutors asserted Steven Ingersoll’s tax evasion charges demonstrated the truth of the sayings that “money gives power” and “unchecked power corrupts”.

“Steven Ingersoll obtained control over millions of dollars by creating and running the public charter school known as the Grand Traverse Academy. The power of that money enabled Steven Ingersoll to corrupt himself, his wife Deborah Ingersoll, his brother Gayle Ingersoll, Roy Bradley, Sr., and Tammy Bradley.

As the person who controlled the accounting books and public funds intended for the operation of the Grand Traverse Academy, Steven Ingersoll ignored his obligation to separate his personal finances from the finances of the Grand Traverse Academy.

Instead, Steven Ingersoll treated the tax dollars provided for public education as his personal piggy bank, ultimately diverting approximately $3.5 million from the Grand Traverse Academy to uses other than the operation of the Grand Traverse Academy.

Steven Ingersoll also manipulated the books of entities he controlled, including Smart Schools Management and Smart Schools Incorporated, to hide his diversion of the public money that had been entrusted to him.”

But Ingersoll’s head-hog-at-the-trough behavior continued for years after he left his management perch at the Grand Traverse Academy in March 2014.

For a comprehensive look at Ingersoll and his indictment, I encourage you to read the definitive piece I wrote in April 2014 for my crime/fraud blog, “Glistening, Quivering Underbelly”: “Inside The Bad Actors Studio”.

If you like numbers, you’re going to laugh yourself silly at this!

In the two documents that follow, Habermehl makes a bone-headedly stupid attempt to pull Ingersoll’s fat from a 332,541 degree fire by trotting out two Ingersoll-friendly confections.

The first is Habermehl’s rejection of the public pronouncements by Mark Noss, (the head of the Grand Traverse Academy’s new management company) that Steven Ingersoll would no longer have any further connection or financial relationship with the charter school after Noss assumed management on March 19, 2014).

The second, a May 4, 2012 “Reimbursement Resolution”, belongs in the “Gaslighting Hall of Fame”.

It was a pre-emptive strike by three members of the Grand Traverse Academy board to provide protective cover for Steven Ingersoll: defending Ingersoll’s years-long practice of fraudulently diverting an estimated $5.0 million from the Traverse City charter school’s funds to his various bank accounts.

However, a May 30, 2013 legal analysis delivered to Mark Noss at the Grand Traverse Academy by Margaret Hackett of the Thrun Law Firm detailed the firm’s examination of Steven Ingersoll’s financial maneuvering and acts of self-dealing revealing he took advantage of his position at the Traverse City charter school.

The once confidential 15-page legal analysis, released publicly by government prosecutors as an exhibit in Steven Ingersoll’s sentencing hearing in 2015, was delivered to the Grand Traverse Academy Board 13 months before Ingersoll was indicted.

But the Board did nothing.

The Thrun letter revealed that Ingersoll had secretly opened a second general fund bank account, manipulated financial records (with a series of furtive bank transfers) to make it appear he had repaid his massive debt in 2011, and asked the board to characterize his $3.5 million-dollar debt as a “loan” because he “needed” it.

You can read the Thrun letter at this link.

So this is what, given the chance, I’d ask Habermehl: does Steven Ingersoll have a picture of you with a goat…or are you just a jackass?