Sharon put her sons on "her" XanGo company's payroll and paid them extremely well, Mark Davidson says. There were family trips to Hawaii and Alaska. He even helped Unkefer buy a racehorse for $125,000, filling out paperwork with the Arizona Racing Commission for him and forming a bogus corporation in Davidson's name; Unkefer couldn't own a racehorse because of his felony conviction.
Unkefer is the "love of my life," Sharon wrote in a class-reunion bio in 2008 — the couple were "enjoying every minute" of their work with XanGo.
Republic Monetary Exchange leases an office near 40th Street and Camelback Road.
James D. Clark, the son of Republic's owner and the company's former VP of sales, gave damaging testimony against his father during the lawsuit with Unkefer.
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"My husband traveled approximately 380,000 miles last year," she wrote. "We will be going to Paris the last week in June and then off to the Grand Caymans."
Later that summer, however, Sharon grew gravely ill.
Harley contends she didn't get quality medical help early but believed XanGo juice would cure her.
"That snake oil killed my mom," Harley grumbles. "[Unkefer and others in the company are] just a bunch of scumbags and scam artists."
Of course, Harley and Mark Davidson profited from the XanGo scam, too, albeit indirectly. But Unkefer wasn't about to let them in all his plans.
The Davidsons didn't know it, but Unkefer and Clark were having meetings at the hospital where Sharon was being treated, discussing Clark's plan to open a gold-selling business. Clark had been banned from the business until his probation ended in 2006, but now he was raring to go.
Unkefer wrote a $50,000 check to Clark the week before Sharon died. Another $150,000 came a few weeks later.
Unkefer and Clark were back in the gold business together.
The Davidson family received a large life insurance payment after Sharon's death, but Unkefer's assistant and girlfriend, Laundy Unkefer — the ex-wife of Sherman Unkefer's oldest son — told them that Sharon did not have a will, Mark Davidson says. They had no reason to disagree with that. But they knew that Sharon had created a trust fund to protect the XanGo assets and income and that they were beneficiaries. They figured Unkefer would take care of them.
"Sherman said, 'When I die, you guys will get what's left of the trust,'" Davidson says.
To this day, Unkefer's website (www.shermanunkefer.com) brags that the XanGo juice distributorship he operates, X-1 LLC, "earns a 6-figure income MONTHLY and millions per year!"
That may or may not be accurate. Unkefer takes his salary, travel, and other expenses from X-1, which he doesn't own himself. X-1's owner, Mango Trust, was set up by Unkefer and Sharon.
The trust is in the Cook Islands, long a favorite of those who want to avoid transparency, because under the islands' legal system frequently ignores foreign court orders.
The trust, which records show could be worth several million dollars, is managed by Todd Hall of the San Diego law firm Teeple Hall. But there's also a co-trustee, Asia Trust Limited, which itself is managed by a trustee based in the Cook Islands.
Unkefer is the primary beneficiary of the trust. The document and Sharon Unkefer's will show that Sharon wanted Unkefer to use what he needed of the trust to maintain his lifestyle. But, in theory, he doesn't have complete control of it. He has to make requests for money from the trust from Todd Hall.
The Davidsons allege Unkefer "dictates" to Hall what he needs and that Unkefer has committed fraud in his accounting records to perpetuate the idea that he owns almost nothing. They want to strip Unkefer of the ability to use the trust, force him to pay back the aging fraud victims — and maybe put some of the dough in their own pockets, if possible.
The 2010 New Times article on Unkefer and Clark riled them, Mark Davidson says. Harley called him after reading it and spewed, "What's this shit about us owning a gold company?" Harley figured that because the brothers were "contingent beneficiaries" in Mango Trust, they had an interest in the gold firm.
When he asked Unkefer about his 30 percent investment in Republic, Davidson says, Unkefer stopped speaking to him. That's when Mark Davidson wrote the Teeple Hall law firm and asked for a copy of the trust. He says the firm told him he couldn't see it because he wasn't a beneficiary.
In the discovery process of the lawsuit, Davidson proved he and Sharon's other children were contingent beneficiaries, which means they, Laundy Unkefer, and Sherman's children will inherit the trust after Unkefer dies. It turned out that Sharon had, in shaky handwriting, signed a will the month before she died that cut out her children and placed all her assets in the trust for Sherman Unkefer's benefit for as long as he lives. Mark Davidson says he believes she did this to protect her children from potential legal actions against her husband.
But Mark says he now realizes that all the trust does is protect Unkefer from his fraud victims, in addition to hiding Unkefer's money. The accounting paperwork is unorthodox, leading Mark and Harley to believe that Unkefer is up to no good. For instance, an X-1 balance sheet from 2009 shows that $1.2 million was spent on "travel/other."
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