STEVEN INGERSOLL’S COZY COTERIE OF CONS: THE SECRET HISTORY OF “ICONIX”, Co-starring former Grand Traverse Academy board member Bradley Habermehl
Nearly nine years after he secretly solicited a $300,000 loan on behalf of his “friend and colleague” Steven Ingersoll, former Grand Traverse Academy board member Brad Habermehl and Ingersoll remain as thick as thieves.
The emails shown below were taken directly from official federal court records from Ingersoll’s tax evasion trial.
In 2019, Habermehl fled Flint, Michigan, for the sunnier climes of Pomona, California.
However, he still has plenty of time to file multiple documents in support of Steven Ingersoll’s futile effort to duck a $332,541.94 default judgment stemming from a 2020 bankruptcy adversary action.
It appears the “private school” project Habermehl described in the November 24, 2014 loan solicitation email above likely morphed into “ICONIX”, described as bringing “the neuroscience of vision to education.”
And while the two emails shown above were entered into evidence during Ingersoll’s 2015 criminal trial, Habermehl sent many others that have never been revealed…until now.
BACKGROUND
As President of the Grand Traverse Academy Board of Directors, Flint area optometrist Bradley Habermehl took an oath of office, assuming a fiduciary responsibility for the finances of the public school academy.
And as the Board’s de facto spokesperson, Habermehl was the public face of the Traverse City charter school during the Steven Ingersoll fraud scandal. Habermehl was sworn in on May 2, 2013, resigning on June 30, 2016.
However, during Ingersoll’s sentencing hearing, the government entered into evidence shocking emails between Ingersoll, Habermehl and a business associate of Habermehl’s (beginning in November 2014, and continuing well after Ingersoll’s federal fraud conviction) that revealed Habermehl solicited a $300,000 investment “loan” from his associate for what Habermehl described as a potential “private school” project on behalf of his “friend and colleague” Steven Ingersoll .
Habermehl later admitted to his associate that he was also one of the prospective project’s five partners.
After sending the initial pitch email on November 24, 2014, Habermehl reported back to Ingersoll.
Ingersoll responded, putting more “possible collateral” on the table: two other “high value houses” and “three school buildings” in Bay City, Michigan.
Habermehl’s associate passed on the “Ingersoll private school” investment, later sending this email just days after Ingersoll’s March 10, 2015 convictions of one count of tax evasion for 2009, one count of tax evasion for 2010 and one count of conspiracy to defraud the IRS with respect to 2011.
Habermehl reveals there are “currently five investors that are perusing the school project”, and later spills his guts in court during Ingersoll’s sentencing hearing that “a potential financier” was in fact Bruce Harger, the former Director of Lake Superior State University charter school office.
Can anybody say “insider”?
Harger and Ingersoll had been secretly kibbitzing for months via email, commiserating and blowing smoke up each other’s asses.
The email stream took a dark turn on October 29, 2015, when Harger urged Ingersoll to “seek some satisfaction” from “Senkowski” — even offering to help Ingersoll through testimony “or otherwise”.
In October 2017, Bradley Habermehl sent an email to the associate he’d pitched the Ingersoll investment, apologizing “for bringing Steve Ingersoll to you and asking for the loan to the new school.”
Habermehl claimed he “believed what I was being told by Steve” and failed to do his “own research” into Ingersoll’s criminal status.
Quelle suprise…now that’s a lie.
Habermehl did a 180 degree turn, stating in the October 6, 2017 email (shown below) that “if the loan had been granted, I was totally prepared to cosign for that loan with Steve.”
In closing, Habermehl told his investment target “you saved me from a horrible decision of going into business with Steve Ingersoll”.
So what are they doing together in Grand Rapids?
You just can’t make this shit up!
