5280 Magazine – January 2024
English | 100 pages | pdf | 35.64 MB
It’s been more than five years, but I can still remember feeling the hot flash that coursed through my body the moment I realized I had barely escaped being scammed out of $1,000.The ruse had been so persuasive, so meticulously crafted, so professional—yet more than a sense of relief, I felt embarrassed. I was also very, very angry.
It was that unpleasant experience, and a few others before and after it, that made me understand, even just a little bit, how Danielle Shoots, Regan Byrd, Brenda Herrera Moreno, and so many other Coloradans likely felt when they began to comprehend the level of deception they say they encountered at the hands of a person they thought they could trust—a man who went by the name Aaron Clark.
In this month’s “The Mysterious Mr.Clark”(page 46), associate editor Chris Walker no t only details the alleged financial crimes Clark committed as the CEO of a Denver startup called Equity
Solutions, but also delivers answers to the questions so many Centennial Staters have been asking since Clark vanished in late 2022:Whowas Aaron Clark, and where did he come from?
It took Walker the better part of a year, but he tracked down court records, found old email addresses, reached out to victims from other states and countries, waded through ancient Yelp reviews, and used Internet Archive’ Wayback Machine to make clear Clark’s murky past.“Yesit took some digging,” Walker says, “but if someone had really wanted to know who Aaron Clarkwas—say, an investor who was going to fund a startup—that person could have found out that Clark had a seedy past. If someone had done the research, it might’ve prevented a lot of heartache.”
Instead, Clark left a trail of hurt and angry people, some of whom are owed
= money and all of whom want answers.
Walker may not be able to give them all of the explanations they desire— and deserve—but he has thoroughly unriddled the riddle of Aaron Clark.
LINDSEY B. KING
Editor
[email protected]
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