Overland Park’s Ephren Taylor II pleads guilty in federal fraud case

Ephren Taylor II of Overland Park pleaded guilty this week to federal fraud charges in Atlanta, admitting that he cheated hundreds of people out of their retirement savings.

Sentencing for Taylor, 32, is set for Dec. 18.

By pleading guilty, Taylor acknowledged that he defrauded investors nationwide out of more than $7 million in 2009 and 2010 during his Building Wealth Tour, U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said.

The phony pitches of Taylor, the son of a preacher, were directed mainly at church congregations in the South. Portraying himself as a “socially conscious investor,” Taylor claimed that 20 percent of the profits from his ventures went to charity, which was a lie, authorities said.

A 2012 profile in the The Star detailed Taylor’s rise and fall. While a student at Blue Valley North High School, he and a classmate started a website that paired job-seeking teens with employers.

It got a lot of attention. And while no one got rich from that website, GoFerretGo.com, Taylor claimed otherwise. He built a persona upon the myth that he had become a millionaire before he turned 20 and was the youngest African-American CEO in the country. His phony success story was featured on national TV and earned him a speaking engagement at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Some of his earliest business ventures were in the Kansas City area. He once owned a big chunk of property south of Kansas City’s jazz district and said he planned to build housing there. But those lots are still vacant.

In a civil action two years ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Taylor of running “a Ponzi scheme to swindle more than $11 million, primarily from African-American churchgoers.”

That case ended last year with a default judgment against him of $11.8 million, which he did not pay.

This story was originally published October 10, 2014 at 9:50 AM with the headline "Overland Park’s Ephren Taylor II pleads guilty in federal fraud case."