One bad penny

COEUR d'ALENE - Kevin Wolter of CoinsPlus said he hopes Kevin Mitchell of the now-closed CoiNuts never re-opens his business.

While Mitchell owned and operated CoiNuts, Wolter said, "We personally heard of hundreds of bad checks, broken hearts, broken spirits, crushed dreams and the like."

Wolter, who has owned CoinsPlus in Spokane for nearly 20 years, first met Mitchell in the early 1990s at a coin show.

Since then, "(Mitchell) has been blackballed by every industry organization in existence," Wolter said Thursday at his upscale coin shop at 3201 N. Division St. in Spokane.

Wolter said Mitchell didn't steal money or coins from him.

"But when he got into business the reason he named his business CoiNuts is he was trying to find a way to look like CoinsPlus," Wolter said. "We're big and we've got an impeccable reputation."

Wolter said before Mitchell got CoiNuts going he was a regular at CoinsPlus.

"He took my exact ad (in the phonebook), and put in his name - CoiNuts - and just changed the address and number," Wolter said. Wolter had an attorney write letters to the phonebook company to prevent Mitchell from continuing to copy him.

"(Mitchell) told people over and over that we were affiliated," Wolter said. "He would go to the West Coast coin shows and he'd use my name."

It gave Mitchell's business a big-time boost.

Dealers and investors and others don't readily take a $20,000 check from strangers, Wolter said. But they would be more likely to do so if someone said they were affiliated with Kevin Wolter at CoinsPlus, as Mitchell often liked to do.

"Boom! - they'd take the check," Wolter said. "It got really dirty, and I'd tell (Mitchell) you're a piece of crap."

Wolter estimated Mitchell probably bounced 1,000 checks, based on conversations he has had with former CoiNuts customers and employees.

"I think he's absconded with well over $2 million" of CoiNuts' customers' money, Wolter said. Mitchell hasn't responded at home or by phone to requests for comment.

Last week, The Press reported that dozens of former customers said they were ripped off by CoiNuts, which had been open at 296 W. Sunset Ave. It was shut down last summer.

The former customers said the business allegedly wouldn't deliver on some valuable coins and metals purchased, and Mitchell and his family would allegedly sometimes pay for valuables with bad checks.

Mitchell sold a lot of his coins by offering them at low prices, beating his competitors' prices, but reportedly having no serious intention of producing the valuables.

Other customers said he would allegedly short them on coins and valuables they had placed on consignment at his shop.

"To get the money out of him, you've got to be the loudest, most obnoxious bulldog in the pen," Wolter said.

At the time of their first meeting, Mitchell came up to Wolter's table and started grabbing coins. Mitchell started insisting that Wolter allow him to sell coins for him, saying he could get Wolter "way more" money.

"He's just got that overly nice con-man thing going," Wolter said. "He acts like your best friend, that's in his best mood, that you just met at the bar after he's had three drinks."

Wolter said Mitchell brags constantly about his coin-grading skills, and drops the names of successful dealers and others with solid reputations in the coin business.

Back in the 1990s, Mitchell started a coin-auction website.

Wolter said, "Shortly after that I started hearing from dealers that there were all kinds of problems with payment."

Former CoiNuts customer Marilyn Haenke, who along with her husband allegedly got ripped off for $50,000 by Mitchell, echoed Wolter's comments.

Haenke said Friday, "(Mitchell) was a real shmoozer, and he pretended to be a Christian, which was really sad because we are Christians."

She added, "He boasted about how much money he ran through (in transactions)."

He did it all to gain her trust, she said. She let down her guard and made an investment with him for her children.

Wolter said Mitchell was always looking for investors.

"He'd play the Christian thing," Wolter said. "He'd go church to church. He'd sit down in a men's group and start talking off-hand about how his business is doing so well, and he just needs a little bit of working capital and if anybody could give him some money he could do so much better."

Wolter said Mitchell's actions have tarnished the reputation of other coin and gold shops in Spokane and North Idaho.

"Obviously, it impacts them big time," Wolter said. "It makes people absolutely leery about investing in precious metals in our area. It makes them terrified to take a check from you."

For those who haven't spent much time around valuable coins and gold, it's important to know the coin business has no regulation. Additionally, small fortunes can be held in one hand, the metal is easily transportable, it's quick and easy to sell, and there are no serial numbers on the valuables.

Gerald Park, of Post Falls, who got ripped off for $49,000 at CoiNuts, said he had been to the shop about four or five times after paying for gold coins that were never delivered.

"(Mitchell) would usually say something like, 'They're coming from Texas and they're on their way,'" Park recalled Friday. "Or he'd say, 'There's been a delay, but they're coming.'"

They never showed up.

Inside the CoiNuts shop, Park recalled, "There were automatic rifles, big repeating rifles, stationed all over the store behind the counters. They were meant to be visible."

The store had a lot of countertop space, with many coins on display, most of them nicely packaged but not of particularly high value.

"There were always lots of customers," Park said.

He eventually received a default judgment against Mitchell in 1st District Court in Kootenai County for the money he was owed. With the help of the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department he was able to retrieve all but $4,700 of his loss. A plain-clothes sheriff's deputy, with a court order, walked on multiple occasions into the shop and collected cash on hand. That money then would be given to Park back at the sheriff's department offices.

Once CoiNuts closed in July, however, there was no more money to be collected. Park has no idea how he'll get the rest of his money.

Wolter said, "It's really the fault of some entity in North Idaho."

He said he's shocked Mitchell hasn't been brought to justice.

"There's something they've tolerated that would not last anywhere else," Wolter said.

Kootenai County Prosecutor Barry McHugh couldn't immediately be reached for comment Friday about possible criminal charges.

Wolter said, "If you can document that he's been writing bad checks for a decade, more often than he writes good checks, it's kind of hard to say there's not intent there to commit a crime."