With promises of steady profits, Granite Bay resident Lawrence “Lee” Loomis lured scores of potential investors to his free seminars throughout Placer County and the state.

It was the height of the real-estate boom, and the financial products were, to many of the attendees, a chance to cash in.

But what they didn’t know was the charismatic Loomis was perpetrating a massive Ponzi scheme that would leave many of them in financial ruin – decimating retirements and savings accounts, according to allegations contained in a new civil suit.

The lawsuit, filed recently in Sacramento County Superior Court, is seeking class-action status in an attempt to recover clients’ lost funds.

In it, attorneys describe an elaborate ruse from at least 2006 through 2008 in which local residents with good credit were courted to invest with Loomis’s company, Loomis Wealth Solutions, in various real-estate projects that turned out to be either phony or highly misrepresented.

“For some of them they’ve lost homes, suffered multiple foreclosures, had their credit ruined,” Mark Redmond, who is representing the plaintiff in the suit, said this week. “We’re trying to get our investors made whole.”

The civil case was brought on behalf of Sacramento resident Ernest P. Sanchez, and names Loomis, Aviva Life Insurance Co., Naras Secured Fund LLC, Lismar Financial Services and Nationwide Lending Group as defendants.

The plaintiff’s attorneys claim the companies colluded to defraud perhaps 100 investors, many of them from Placer County, up to $100 million.

“Through the sale of overpriced, worthless or sham investments, Defendants propped up an ever-growing portfolio of hollow assets that eventually caved in on itself,” the lawsuit states.

It’s hardly the first inkling of legal trouble for Loomis.

Last August, agents raided Loomis’s Roseville offices and Granite Bay home, issued a cease-and-desist order alleging unlicensed broker activity, and seized company assets.

Four people associated with the company have been charged with crimes, including Christopher Warren, 26. He fled the country after posting a purported confession online that detailed alleged fraud at the company, triggering an international manhunt.

In court documents, FBI Special Agent Kathleen Nichols wrote Loomis was part of “a large, multi-tiered Ponzi investment scheme, involving securities fraud and real estate mortgage fraud.” Loomis has admitted to misleading investors, according to Nichols’ report.

Still, Loomis has not been indicted on criminal charges, officials said.

According to FBI documents, Loomis acquired prospects by offering a free $10,000 Aviva life-insurance policy, then hooked them into his $25,000-a-share Naras Fund, which purported to invest in sub-prime real estate. After they bought in, he made up false monthly statements showing a steady 12-percent return, according to the FBI documents.

Loomis also sold investors foreclosed homes at up to double what he paid, and used fraudulent documents to obtain loans to buy them, the documents state.

Loomis promised a “handsome return” while the company made the mortgage payments, Nichols wrote.

“However, Loomis Wealth Solutions stopped making payments by spring of 2008,” Nichols wrote. “By August 2008, Loomis informed investors that they would have to pay their own life insurance payments and cover all the mortgage, tax, and insurance payments coming due on their respective properties, or that their loans would go into default. Ultimately, many loans went into default.”

“The housing market of course was collapsing and I think he just had too many people he owed money to,” Redmondsaid. “You can keep it up as long as the inflow was greater than the outflow.”

Sanchez, who was not made available for an interview, is a retired state worker in his sixties who lost $50,000, Redmond said, adding that’s far less than many.

“It’s a variety of emotions,” Redmond said. “There’s embarrassment over it. There’s disappointment. He put his retirement into it.”

Online forums are filled with comments hashing over the business, though purported victims were reluctant to speak on the record.

“If that man ever had a solution for helping his victims it was to find more victims to help create a new influx of cash to spread amongst the original victims that were hurting so bad,” one poster, “Hellataz,” wrote on Scam.com.

Efforts to reach Loomis were unsuccessful at press time.

A media representative for UK-based Aviva said the company disputes the allegations.

“Aviva takes compliance and market conduct very seriously,” Aviva said in a statement. “Aviva expressly prohibits independent producers from engaging in the type of conduct alleged by plaintiff’s attorney in the Sanchez case.”

Updated to reflect correct spelling of atty Redmond sted Redland.