Anti-Mormon Bigot Tricia Erickson Outed As A Former Professional Scam Artist; Settled With Federal Trade Commission In 1999

The efforts of a vitriolic anti-Mormon bigot to smear and defame the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on CNN's "In The Arena" blog have seriously backfired as commenters to the post exposed the fact that the bigot was caught red-handed in a marketing scam and was forced to settle with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) back in 1999.

In a column entitled "An indoctrinated Mormon should never be elected as President", anti-Mormon hatemonger Tricia Erickson, who like so many self-proclaimed "consultants", peddles the typical porridge of ambiguous hopes and dreams through a couple of entities called Crisis Management, Incorporated and Angel Pictures & Publicity, claims that Mitt Romney is unsuitable for the Presidency of the United States. However, the true purpose of her column is to shill her upcoming book entitled "Can Mitt Romney serve two masters", in which she attacks Mitt Romney's religion. Her book is divided into two parts; Part I covers the spiritual aspect, while Part II covers the political.

The central premise of her whole book is that the commitments made by a devout Mormon like Mitt Romney are supposedly so binding and all-encompassing that she believes him to be incapable of governing the country in a manner that might be at odds with LDS Church leadership. In short, she assumes that if Romney has to choose between the country and the Church, he will choose the Church. She bases this assumption upon her own experience as a former Mormon; she describes the endowment ceremonies she underwent in a temple as being "completely violent, mind controlling and alarming".

Yep, you guessed it. Another ex-Mormon who could leave the Church, but who can't leave the Church alone.

Because of Erickson's extremely slanted and vitriolic discourse, CNN was fair-minded enough to retain LDS historian Richard Bushman to directly respond to Erickson's smears, along with Corey P. Saylor, National Legislative Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Ahmed M. Rehab, Executive Director, CAIR-Chicago (I'm not necessarily comfortable with CAIR getting involved because they have a reputation for being apologists for Islamofascism).

But even without Bushman's response, Tricia Erickson's hysteria actually alienated much of the public as reflected in the comments to the post. Furthermore, comments alleging Erickson's unsavory business past began to pop up:

Anthony:
Why don't you tell all of these readers about how you were charged by the Feds back in the late 1990's in Virginia. It seems that a lot of Christain families that you served felt that you ran an organization that scammed them out of a lot of money. Sorry to bring this up, but when you bash on others on a national stage, your past can haunt you. I am suprised CNN did not do a thorough background check on you! (Google it (Erickson Agency, VA))

CHermansen:
ANTHONY, thanks for bringing that to light. After reading many articles about this, such as, http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/modeling_scam.htm
I can only reiterate my previous comment. Funny, I can't find any articles like this about Mitt Romney. I did find one about him shutting down Bain Capital for a couple of days to help search the streets of NYC for a missing girl. To bad he belongs to a cult or you may have to say that sounds pretty Christlike and shows forth love.
You're unbelievable!

Daryl Denney:
Yep. As suspected, she is in it for the money. Credibility gone. Take a look at this. Looks like she is/was a scam artist. Google: Consumer Affairs Modeling Scam Settlement Patricia Erickson

So I Googled the suggested phrase, and look what I found. In May 1999, the FTC charged Model 1, Inc., and its president, Jason Hoffman; Creative Talent Management, Inc. and its president, Ralph Bell; and The Erickson Agency, Inc., and its president, Patricia Erickson, with misrepresenting their ability to get lucrative jobs for consumers who contracted for their modeling and acting courses. The Commission's complaint also alleged that the defendants misrepresented themselves as highly selective in scouting, screening and reviewing consumers for marketability as models or actors. Model 1, Inc., Jason Hoffman, Creative Talent Management, Inc. and Ralph Bell settled FTC charges on August 27th, 1999. The terms of the settlement are posted in this FTC press release, and are also presented towards the end of this post, after the jump.

Confirmation that the current Tricia Erickson and the past Patricia Erickson are the SAME PERSON is posted in BlogsForMitt in the form of three comments:

against hypocrites who spew venom June 24th, 2008 at 12:06 am:
Tricia Erickson, of all people. Wow. This is hilarious. I knew her. I worked for this self-proclaimed “Christian” woman in her agency, called the Erickson Agency, in McLean, VA. It was a scam, pure and simple. This hypocrite bilked a lot of innocent people out of a LOT of money by exploiting their dreams of stardom. Tricia was vicious, too. She and her (then?)-husband Ralph Bell were bullies and would do anything to preserve their money-making scam, including threaten people with legal action if they said they’d go to the authorities. I know it sounds silly, but people were scared of her. She and Ralph Bell were doing the devil’s work, is all I can say. They are EVIL. Ralph was just some engineer who got sucked into the whole money-making allure of Tricia’s modeling and acting agency. Huh. If Tricia is so Christian, let her make amends the right way and take responsibility for hurting a lot of people by downright stealing their money and falsely representing what the Erickson Agency could do for them. Knowing what I know and remember about Tricia Erickson, all I can say is, Tricia, you’ve got some nerve spewing anything against Mitt Romney. “Christian” woman. Indeed.

against hypocrites who spew venom June 24th, 2008 at 12:13 am:
Oh, while I’m thinking of it, one more thing. From what I remember of working at the Erickson Agency, and I remember working there like it was yesterday (like the people she violated must remember being scammed, I bet) Tricia’s hatred of all things Mormon have less to do with the church than it does the fact that a bad Mormon man diddled her when she was little.

rather not October 10th, 2009 at 7:03 am:
ms erickson and her former husband ralph bell ripped off my business for over 40,000.00. their scam business (model 1 aka creative talent management) was shut down by the ftc in 1999. she is a fraud and a thief. she should not be judging anyone. she should spend her time paying back all the people she ripped off in her life.

The terms of the 1999 FTC settlement are presented below:

Under the terms of today's settlement, Patricia Erickson and The Erickson Agency are banned from assisting any entity with the marketing or sale of modeling and acting development programs by:

* appearing in any promotional materials or performing marketing services to consumers;
* reviewing the marketability of individuals for professional work as actors or models;
* allowing a business to use the name of the defendants' clients unless the client hired graduates of that modeling and acting training program during the preceding three calendar years; or
* serving as a reference for any entity that offers modeling and acting training programs.

They also are permanently banned from working with Jason Hoffman, Ralph Bell, Model 1 or Creative Talent Management in any business engaged in the marketing or sale of any services for aspiring models or actors.

As with the settlement reached with Model 1, Inc., Jason Hoffman, Creative Talent Management, Inc. and Ralph Bell, Erickson's settlement prohibits Patricia Erickson and The Erickson Agency from falsely representing that:

* they are selective in scouting, screening and reviewing consumers for marketability as models or actors;
* consumers are likely to obtain substantial paid employment as models or actors through the defendants' efforts;
* their principal source of income is commissions on the fees paid to their models and actors by clients;
* individual sales personnel or other agents have industry expertise to assess consumers' marketability as models or actors;
* any person or entity has hired talent trained by the defendants; and
* the availability of specific modeling or acting assignments.

In addition, in the event that the Erickson defendants ever operate their own training program, they cannot:

* charge any non-refundable testing and processing fee in excess of $50;
* conduct mass scouting by holding in-person solicitations away from their primary business location using scouts or other sales staff who are paid commissions based on enrolling consumers in modeling and acting development services; or
* condition talent representation on consumers' payment of greater than 50% of the tuition and fees for modeling and acting training classes.

In addition, to allow consumers an adequate time to cancel any contract for future training, Erickson must also provide a 3-day cooling off period in which the consumer may cancel his or her contract and receive his or her money back less the $50 non-refundable fee, after the consumer has been accepted into any modeling or acting development program, and after the consumer has been informed of the total cost of the program.

Finally, under the settlement, the Erickson defendants must pay a $25,000 monetary judgment, which contains an avalanche clause that calls for the defendants to pay a $500,000 judgment if the court finds that either of them made a material misrepresentation or omission on their sworn financial statement. The settlement also contains various recordkeeping requirements to assist the FTC in monitoring the defendants' compliance.