Renaissance, aka "The Tax People" Shut Down in Kansas as Illegal Pyramid

At its core, the Renaissance marketing plan is a clever scheme to extract money from consumers through the use of misrepresented facts, exaggerated claims and projections, undisclosed material facts and false promotions.

So ruled Judge Richard D. Anderson of Shawnee County Court, Topeka, Kansas. After determining that most of the claims made by the company were false, Judge Anderson ordered the company shut down and its assets frozen. The assets of Michael Cooper, company founder, were also seized, and the court has appointed a receiver.

A month previously, IRS agents had raided Cooper's home and seized records and personal property.

Cooper claims that he will move the company's headquarters to Las Vegas, AZ, and continue doing business from there.

In February, Robert Fitzpatrick, President of Pyramid Scheme Alert and co-author of False Profits: Seeking Financial and Spiritual Deliverance in Multi-level Marketing and Pyramid Schemes had testified that "The program is architecturally designed as a pyramid referral program and it is mathematically unsustainable." In his testimony, Fitzpatrick referred to the Renaissance program as a "disguised" pyramid scheme, with the existence of products and services serving to mask the fact that participants were paid to recruit others.

During that same hearing, Cooper repeatedly refused to answer questions, standing on his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself.

The Tax People had taken in over $100 million in a 2-1/2 year period. It is not known how many participants lost money in the scheme.

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