Spokane businessman with ties to failed Tennessee business faces lottery theft allegations

A longtime Spokane resident with ties to a failed venture into environmentally friendly concrete stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from a widowed Oregon lottery winner, a grand jury alleges.

Scott K. Brett, 54, faces up to 20 years in prison on a charge of wire fraud. Investigators allege Brett promised to invest $1 million in lottery winnings belonging to a woman in Hermiston, Oregon, according to an indictment handed down in Spokane this week.

Instead, Brett pocketed $855,000, court documents say, in violation of a signed agreement with the lottery winner.

Reached by phone Thursday, Brett declined comment on the allegations, saying he hadn’t seen the indictment. He has not hired an attorney in the case, according to court records.

Brett previously was the chief executive of a firm called CoreTech that sought government loans for a “green” office park that never materialized in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee.

The alleged victim, who is identified only by initials in court records, won $18.2 million with her husband in an Oregon Megabucks Jackpot lottery in 2003, according to the indictment. When her husband died in 2008, she gained full financial control of the winnings. Through her son, she came into contact with Brett in February 2011.

Brett promised to hold $1 million in escrow and use it to double the investment over two-week periods, eventually leading to a total of $8 million within a month, according to the indictment. Within a week, the lottery winner signed a document transferring her winnings to an account belonging to Brett in a Utah bank.

A lump sum of $130,000 was returned to the winner a few days after the agreement was signed, as were a few payments totaling around $25,000 since February 2011. Investigators allege Brett siphoned the money into his own accounts and payments to his lawyer in Utah, who is not named in the indictment.

Brett had racked up significant debts in Spokane, according to local court records. His wages were garnished in 2010 by the IRS for back taxes totaling about $28,027. Brett owed $22,405 to an auto dealer for a 2004 Chevy pickup bought in 2009, and he had other personal and professional debts totaling about $5,000 dating back to 2005, according to Spokane County Superior Court records.

Brett filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Spokane in 2002. He also filed for bankruptcy protection in Oregon in 2012, but he failed to provide all the necessary documents on time and the case was closed, according to court records.

A Spokane County Superior Court judgment against CoreTech Industries, a company based in Canada and licensed in Nevada with a business address in Spokane, was entered in July 2009 totaling $184,966, according to court records. CoreTech was in negotiations to construct a “green technology research and development business park” in Lebanon, Tennessee, a town of roughly 27,000 people about 25 miles outside of Nashville.

That plan fell apart when the Lebanon City Council began to investigate the background of the company and Brett, the firm’s CEO, according to local news reports from the Lebanon Democrat and the Wilson (County) Post.

CoreTech President Greg Quinn defended Brett to the local media, saying his company was committed to building the business park in Lebanon.

Quinn also confirmed that Brett had testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on banking regulations in 2001. Official hearing records from March 2001 show senators were looking into roughly $443,000 in investments with Brett tied to high-risk foreign banks, but no charges were filed in those transactions.

In September 2008, Quinn told a newspaper in Tennessee he wanted to be “the Microsoft of cellular concrete,” the lightweight building material the company touted as its specialty. Within two years, the company had withdrawn plans for the Lebanon plant, with Quinn blaming a “political witch hunt” for the change in plans. The company dissolved in October 2010.

Brett had also involved himself in local real estate deals. In March 1998, he reportedly made an offer to Seattle-based real estate agent Barry Margolese in an attempt to thwart plans to construct the 180-home Summerhill subdivision on Five Mile Prairie. That deal fell through.

Brett is not in custody. The wire fraud case carries a potential maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Salvador Mendoza.