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'I'm Just A Consultant,' Man Says

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By MARK DOUGLAS

News Channel 8

Published: November 29, 2008

CLEARWATER - Jeffrey Maricle told a jury last week that his equipment leasing company, the subject of 65 consumer complaints and a state attorney general's investigation, went out of business in late October.

But just two days after the company's Clearwater office was closed, a new leasing company opened for business elsewhere - with Maricle as a consultant, a Web site registered to him, and six people who worked on the old company's staff.

The operations are not connected, Maricle told News Channel 8.

"It's a completely different company," Maricle said. "I'm just a consultant."

But the attorney general's office suspects a stronger link between the old Global Funding and the new Landmark Leasing, according to a statement issued Wednesday. The office has extended its investigation to include Landmark.

"Maricle has been sighted working at the offices of Landmark Leasing, LLC," the statement said. "Other undisclosed information supports the agency's jurisdiction and reasons for opening this investigation."

The Global Funding investigation sprang from complaints against the company by independent truckers and others across the country, many of them regarding lease deposits that were never returned.

Maricle's court testimony last week came in a separate legal proceeding - the trial of a civil lawsuit against Global Funding by an Illinois company that made a payment on a crane lease and got nothing in return. The six-member jury found Global Funding liable for fraud and awarded damages of $18,517.77.

In addition to the attorney general's investigation, complaints about Global Funding are being investigated by the state Bureau of Financial Investigations, the Clearwater Police Department and the Pinellas County Office of Consumer Protection.

Now, just weeks after it opened, Landmark Leasing is raising concerns, as well.

The new company is not registered with the state Division of Corporations, according to records on file there. The division sent Landmark a letter last week directing it to clarify its status.
Maricle said Landmark isn't registered in Florida because "you don't have to be." The company registered Oct. 21 in Delaware, where companies need not identify principals.

Landmark's Web site, registered Oct. 9 with Maricle's contact information, included a sales pitch with language that read word for word like the pitch at Global Funding's site. Landmark's site also listed the old Global Funding location and phone number as its contacts.

After News Channel 8 started asking questions about the similarities, language on the Landmark Web site was changed.

One other change occurred after a reporter contacted the company: Landmark obtained an occupational license, as required by city ordinance in Dunedin. The company had operated without one for the first two weeks of November.

In addition, six businesses listed as equipment vendors on the new company's Web site told News Channel 8 they've never heard of Landmark Leasing or Global Funding.

One of the vendors, Dan Wilcox, owner of BigIron Sales and Rentals in Matthews, N.C., said he's still seeking a buyer for a heavy duty forklift listed on Landmark's site as a "funded transaction."

"I'm standing here in the yard looking at it," Wilcox said.

Phil Ruckman, owner of Ruckman's Truck Center Inc. in Fort Wayne, Ind., said "that's just bogus" when a reporter told him his 2002 International 4300 truck was among the lease deals on Landmark's Web site.

"That truck is not sold and could not have been funded," Ruckman said.

Robert Craig Gibbons, who identified himself as a "managing member" of Landmark Leasing, explained the Web postings by saying the company was trying to illustrate some of its deals with generic photos of similar equipment.

"Those pictures are all over the Internet," said Gibbons, who also was an executive with the old Global Funding. "We wanted to show what it would look like."

Gibbons called the postings a mistake and said they have been corrected.

Reporter Mark Douglas can be reached at (727) 536-9603.

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