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want to get money back

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M

msuio

Guest
I'm in Michigan; Charles' residence is in Georgia. In a nutshell, he borrowed $18,000 from me and my sister 2 years ago (when I was in California) to purchase a laundromat premise worth $300,000 in Atlanta (he told us so), promising us he would either pay us interest or pay us percentage of his business income, whatever would benefit us more. It was a phone conversation. I've known him since he was our Catholic priest (he left his order to go into business), and his family are active members in our Church, therefore we felt safe sending him all of our savings without requesting an IOU first. When he finally sent us an IOU several months later, it was an unofficial one (prepared and signed by him, dated that month, not the month he received our money) and stated that he borrowed the money for personal use (not a business investment), and he would be liable to it.
When we decided to ask for our money back this summer (he never sent us any interests since Dec 1999), he said he had audit problems with IRS but as soon as he resolved them and sold his laundromat business, he would pay our money back. I don't know if he ever did so, but he's never returned our calls nor answered my letters since this May.
In August, after my inquiry, his secretary wrote us that he was abroad but she didn't know when he would come back to the States. Can we sue him on the basis of breaching a verbal business contract? Can he be sued even if I don't know his current whereabouts (the only addresses I got are his apartment in Atlanta, and his parents' in California)? Should I report our case to the police in Georgia? What can we do? We just want to get our money back!!! By the way, my sister and I are college students and we can't afford big lawyers' retainer and fees. We'll highly appreciate your advice!
 



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