Vikings bidder's gift feared to be bogus

On paper, she has lost only $568 -- so far.

But because Evelyn Fleet isn't made of money, she isn't worried about losing any more cash.

What the elderly blind woman is afraid of losing is her dream after dealing with Anil Gupta and his wife, Shruti Misra.

The Las Vegas couple has boasted of Misra's wealth in recent weeks, claiming she is worth $5 billion and a front-runner to purchase the NFL's Minnesota Vikings for $225 million.

But Fleet isn't concerned with portfolios. She merely wants to know why Gupta and Misra would make a $5.1 million donation last month to Active Blind and Visually Impaired of Nevada using worthless railroad bonds and unconfirmed real estate holdings.

The couple, which has been involved in numerous lawsuits, has managed to became directors of the organization. Misra also garnered publicity at Fleet's expense through a $568 newspaper ad trumpeting Misra's unsubstantiated wealth and philanthropy.

The struggling charity has yet to receive a penny.

"I feel so bad because I allowed Active Blind to be taken," said Fleet, who is blind due to glaucoma.

"I have tried so hard. When Anil showed up at my door, it was God's answer to my prayers."

Or so she thought initially.

Fleet, 74, founded Active Blind as a training center to help the visually impaired become productive members of society.

"The Active Blind directors are so excited about the prospect of getting the money," she said, "and now I've got to tell them it may be a hoax."

Gupta, according to Fleet, decided to contribute $5.1 million to Active Blind after selecting it out a library book of non-profit organizations.

"He said that's where he got my phone number," Fleet said, sitting in the room of her threadbare apartment, flanked by her trained Seeing Eye dogs, Scarlet and Marla.

Fleet spent $568 from her personal bank account to pay for the newspaper ad featuring a photo of Misra and Fleet. The ad stated Misra had donated $5.1 million to Active Blind.

"He said he wanted to make sure the donation got newspaper publicity because it would help them become known in town," Fleet said.

That contradicts a recent published report in which Misra said "I don't want to be known in public."

The ad stated the gift consisted "of cash, land and stocks."

The donation consisted not of cash, however, but of documents that Gupta said were railroad bonds and land deeds. Part of the gift consisted of three $1,000 first-mortgage bonds allegedly issued in January 1890, paying six percent a year in semi-annual installments, with principal payable in July 1909.

The three bonds -- certificate Nos. 626-628 -- allegedly were part of a $1 million offering issued by the Deming, Sierra Madre & Pacific Railroad, which the New Mexico secretary of state's office said has not existed since October 1937.

The bonds indicated that the principal was to be repaid in gold coin or gold scrip.

Gupta also gave Fleet a document allegedly prepared by George Beys, a purported lawyer for the "Historical Archives Institute" of the Bahamas. The document claims that "As of Aug. 24, 1996, based on the current value of gold, the total dollar amount due and payable and value of the bond is $16,980,000 per bond."

The Beys document also claims that "Based on our examinations of the certificate, we find no evidence to suggest that the document is anything but authentic."

But another document Gupta provided to Fleet, whose blindness prevents her from reading anything but Braille, states: "These historical documents have no investment value and are nothing more than historical memorabilia. These historical documents cannot be taken into any bank or other entity and turned into cash, with or without the Beys valuation."

Fleet said Gupta read from some of the documents that he had her sign, but that she didn't recall him reading the parts indicating the bonds were worthless.

"There are nine directors of this organization, and she probably is the least knowledgeable," Gupta said of Fleet.

Gupta said that even if the bonds prove worthless, he and Misra will comply with their pledge to donate $5.1 million to Active Blind.

"The documents say the pledge consists of some land and these historical documents, and the balance will follow in cash over the next two years," Gupta said.

"On the historical document bonds, the pledge says they will be placed into a trading program that will yield a lot of money. That $16 million is an old number that was used two years ago. Now they're getting $1.5 million per bond.

"If the program doesn't succeed they have the right to dispose of them in the open market," Gupta said.

Gupta, who has been arrested for theft and convicted of conspiracy to commit theft, was asked how Active Blind could find any market for worthless pieces of paper.

"There are formulas for calculating the value," he replied. "That would come to $13 million or so in paper value. Not in the U.S., but in Europe there are institutions that can enhance their financials."

Gupta couldn't explain how any reputable institution could "enhance its financial" with paper that has no value.

"What I've been told is that these trust people have done this before, and they can use them and pay money on them," he said.

"This is a total pledge. If this program isn't successful, they can get rid of them."

In regard to the land portion of the donation to Active Blind, Gupta said the organization "already has the deed to the first 42 acres, which is worth about $400,000 total."

Fleet, however, is uncertain as to the whereabouts of the land deeds.

"They have already been given it, and they could sell it," Gupta said. "These people said they could get additional grants from the state and instead of selling the land would keep it and use state funds to get operating.

"A charity of this small size couldn't handle $5 million at once. We'll go slowly and give them some money step by step for their own protection."

Gupta denied that the ad Fleet paid for was designed to convince Las Vegans he and Misra were wealthy enough to buy the Vikings and make other investments.

"As for the ad, it gives our family a chance to show it to other well-to-do business people to encourage them to make donations to charitable organizations in the U.S.," he said.

"The secondary reason was that one of the directors of Active Blind said that (the ad) would give them some visibility and bring them into the limelight."

Misra is out of the limelight as far as the Vikings sale is concerned, although Gupta continues to insist his wife's bid to purchase the NFL team should be taken seriously.

Gupta said the Arizona insurance company U.S. Guaranty "told us that if we were willing to pledge certain land parcels, they would finance the purchase of the Vikings."

U.S. Guaranty officials have not returned repeated phone calls to the Sun.

"They wanted us to assign a certain amount of raw land for $50 million, and said they'd finance $130 million in the form of a loan on the team," Gupta said. "We haven't assigned the land until we see what happens with the team."

Gupta said many financial institutions would make such a commitment -- if the land put up as collateral was owned by the borrower and was appraised at the values claimed. No such appraisals have been conducted, however.

Gupta reiterated Misra is the one with the wealth. He said she accumulated most of her real estate and precious metals assets through her father, Chihranjan Misra.

"Her family has all the cash," he said. "They told us you've got some land assets and to go ahead and play with it and if you run into trouble we'll put up the cash to buy the Vikings."

He originally claimed the $2.4 billion in gold, silver and platinum were stored in a Las Vegas warehouse. But when precious metals experts said Fort Knox was the only viable facility for such a collection -- more than the entire annual haul for the state of Nevada -- he changed the story.

"There's very little gold," Gupta said. "The bulk of it is rhodium, about 70 percent, and 25 percent is osmium, and the rest is other metals."

In addition to the metals, Misra claims to own billions of dollars of property in Central Nevada, Riverside County, Calif., and northern Mexico.

But a search of Nevada public real estate records indicates only one parcel of land belonging to Misra or Gupta. Misra's Sudan-Malakal Holding Trust owns a vacant lot near Kyle Canyon Road.

The Riverside County Tax Assessor's office has no record of any landholdings for Misra or Gupta.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Consulate in Juarez, Mexico (just south of the border from El Paso, Texas), said Monday that Mexican privacy laws protect property record information. The only way for a third party to obtain such information, she said, is to go through a Mexican court.

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