Assistant pastor from Cape Girardeau to serve six months in federal prison for fraud

A Cape Girardeau man will serve six months in federal prison and six months of home confinement for his role in a fraudulent investment scheme, acting federal prosecutor Michael Reap announced Monday.

Calvin Bird, 42, must also pay $224,000 in restitution to the victim of the scheme, U.S. District Judge Rodney Sippel ordered.

Bird pleaded guilty in August to promising a tenfold return on a $100,000 investment placed with Kevin Hackenberg of Houston. Bird promised the large return to a Sikeston, Mo., man who had received a large civil judgment for a workplace injury and eventually defrauded the victim of $260,000 through multiple transactions, said assistant federal prosecutor Matthew Schelp, who prosecuted the case.

Bird ran Bird and Associates, a company that later became Island Financial, a news release from Reap's office said. Bird met Hackenberg in 2005 and secured a $1.5 million investment, earning a $200,000 commission. Bird later learned Hackenberg had diverted the money to personal use but continued to solicit investments, the news release said.

In September 2006, Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan ordered Bird to stop selling investment securities based on the fraudulent investments for the Sikeston man. At the time, Bird claimed in an interview he had not profited from the investment in a New Jersey real estate project, blaming the losses on associates.

But in the news release issued Monday, Reap's office said Bird admitted he knew Hackenberg was not investing the money and instead was taking it for personal use at the time he solicited the money from the Sikeston investor.

Bird has been the assistant pastor at Greater Dimensions Ministry, 723 Hackberry St. He was also director of Weed and Seed of Southeast Missouri Inc. from September 1997 to April 1999, when he resigned. Operation Weed and Seed is a U.S. Department of Justice initiative designed to weed out violent crime, drug use and gang activity. At the time, Weed and Seed of Southeast Missouri Inc. targeted neighborhoods in Cape Girardeau, Sikeston, Charleston, Poplar Bluff and Caruthersville.

Hackenberg has not been charged with any crimes, Schelp said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

111 S. 10th St., St. Louis, MO

723 Hackberry St., Cape Girardeau, MO

Sikeston, MO