Jeffreys’ request for bond rejected
Judge cites threats made in call from jail
Vulgar and threatening comments about a female FBI agent have unraveled Greg Jeffreys’ latest efforts to bond out of jail as he fights a massive federal fraud and money laundering indictment.
His name-calling and menacing description of FBI special agent Lisa Jangaard captured on a taped jailhouse phone call to his son also included an expletive-laden threat to “bury” her.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno called the episode “frankly unsettling to me,” as she ruled Friday that Jeffreys should continue to be considered a dangerous threat and kept locked up while waiting for his trial.
Jeffreys, one of Spokane’s largest commercial developers, is a central fixture in the Ridpath Hotel debacle, though none of the criminal charges against him are tied to the downtown high-rise. That project, and others that Jeffreys put together, include some of Spokane’s most notable real estate professionals.
While Jeffreys awaits trial on the 73-count indictment, he continues to violate the judge’s orders to avoid talking with co-defendants and others, according to federal prosecutors.
They said he is working with his girlfriend and co-defendant Shannon Stiltner to sell guns and jewelry – including his $22,000 watch – to raise money. Some of that was to be used to post bond for another inmate: Freddie Joe Hall, a 51-year-old man with seven felony convictions now facing methamphetamine charges.
Sean McLaughlin, the assistant U.S. attorney pressing the Jeffreys prosecution, said Hall remains in jail as investigators attempt to determine what Jeffreys meant when he said during another taped phone call that Hall “can help us.”
McLaughlin wrote in court records that Hall was recently arrested on felony meth charges, has felony convictions for drugs, burglary and assault, and has numerous family members with histories of violence, narcotics arrests and convictions.
Though the new information doomed Jeffreys’ request for bond, prosecutors also recounted the underpinnings of the initial reasons for denying bond.
Among them are death threats Jeffreys made against Spokane technology businessman Gregory Green during the Gonzaga men’s basketball game on Jan. 26.
The two men have had personal quarrels, in part over Stiltner, and prosecutors said there’s a list of police complaints and restraining orders on file with the Liberty Lake Police Department.
Green and Stiltner were married when she began having an affair with Jeffreys, who was married to another co-defendant in the fraud case, Kimberly Jeffreys, according to court records.
Stiltner and Green divorced, and Stiltner and Greg Jeffreys later lived together in Las Vegas, where they are suspected of pursuing other fraudulent investment schemes.
At the basketball game, Jeffreys reportedly confronted Green and told him that he is a “dead man” if Jeffreys ever went to prison. Within a week federal agents arrested Jeffreys.
Denial of Jeffreys’ bond is also based on evidence that he remains an economic threat to the community.
When federal agents arrested him at the Spokane airport, they discovered paperwork in his briefcase outlining another financial scheme, they said. This time it was a $1.6 million investment solicitation for a Las Vegas property. McLaughlin said the property owner had no knowledge of Jeffreys’ solicitation or plans.
Jeffreys did earn a positive nod from Imbrogno for turning himself in again several hours after jailers mistakenly released him in early February.