Investors trusted Armitage

<p>The collapse of AGA Financial has left dozens of Sonoma County investors with many questions about their financial futures.</p><p>How much have they lost?</p><p>Is there any way to recover their savings?</p><p>What could they have done differently?</p><p>But one question above all others gnaws at the people who invested their savings with Gary Armitage: Why did they trust a man they barely knew?</p><p>Some investors in AGA Financial were Armitage's neighbors, hunting buddies and family members. Others were people he knew from his hometown of Healdsburg, where he graduated from high school and raised two children with his wife, Nell.</p><p>Many others didn't know Armitage when they first met him at investment seminars and found him to be an impressive, persuasive speaker.</p><p>"He was smooth as silk," said Paul Scheckler, who along with his wife invested more than $750,000 with Armitage. "We had questions, and he had answers that were simple and clear and exactly what we wanted to hear."</p><p>The 70-year-old Danville resident, a retired elementary school teacher, was looking for safe, tax-free investments that generated retirement income. He had gone to financial advisers before, but "nobody was as smooth and appeared to be as honest and sincere as Gary Armitage," Scheckler said.</p><p>His opinion has changed dramatically since monthly payments stopped last year and the properties have been thrown into chaos.</p><p>Efforts to reach Armitage over three weeks at his Healdsburg home and AGA Financial office in Santa Rosa have been unsuccessful. Son Jeremy Armitage, who was supposed to take over his father's clients after AGA Financial closed, has said neither he nor his father would have any comment.</p><p>A portrait of the man at the center of the AGA Financial implosion gradually emerges from interviews with friends, clients and family members.</p><p>Gary Thomas Armitage was born in Healdsburg May 17, 1950, into a family that was not prosperous. His parents died before he graduated from Healdsburg High School.</p><p>According to a biography formerly posted on AGA Financial's Web site, Armitage received various financial certifications from the American College, a distance learning institution in Pennsylvania.</p><p>According to the biography, he has been in the financial services industry since 1982. He founded AGA in 1994 with two business partners "to provide quality education on personal financial planning for people of all walks of life."</p><p>An avid deer hunter and fisherman, Armitage often regaled clients with tales of fishing trips to Canada.</p><p>He and his family lived in a home in the Alexander Valley for years, and in 2001 moved to a larger, more luxurious residence on a hillside overlooking Simi Winery.</p><p>"It's a really nice place," said Rick Adams, who along with his wife invested $600,000 with Armitage.</p><p>Adams and others who visited the home said it includes a theater, gym, swimming pool and wine cellar with hand-carved wooden doors imported from Portugal.</p><p>"He was a proud man," said one relative who asked not to be identified because she had money invested with Armitage. "He liked to flaunt what he had, showing off things like his home theater."</p><p>While enjoying the good life, Armitage also shared the wealth with his family.</p><p>He bought the house next door and gave it to his daughter, records show. Both homes sit behind an ornate metal and stone gate.</p><p>He also has helped his younger sister, Peggy Thomason, pay her bills over the years, she said. Thomason said she has heard about the allegations but doubts they are true.</p><p>"I would find it very hard to believe that he would do something like that," she said.</p><p>Angry investors paint a different portrait of a man they believe systematically lied about the safety of their investments. Some, however, aren't sure who is at fault for their losses.</p><p>Santa Rosa resident Paul Montgomery, 79, fears he has lost nearly $40,000 after a care center he invested in was sold. But even after all that has happened, Montgomery says he's inclined to believe that Armitage didn't set out to intentionally hurt people.</p><p>"I'm just beginning to wonder if Gary got in so deep he didn't know how to get out," Montgomery said.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com.</p>