ROGERS — There are no cars in the parking lot at Situs Cancer Research Center. A recreational vehicle sits in a back parking lot near a pile of items covered by a tarp.
Situs was searched June 27 by agents of the FBI who seized property from computers to vehicles. The items under the tarp have been there since the other property was seized.
On the following day, staff members said the clinic served the underinsured and would open July 1. On that day, Jim Bolt, executive director, said appointments were being rescheduled because seized computers contained patient treatment plans.
An affidavit filed July 2 in U.S. District Court of the Western District of Arkansas requested forfeiture of the clinic property at 1222 W. Poplar St., 1204 W. Poplar St., a home next door registered to Situs Cancer Research Center, and 303 Rife Drive, listed in Benton County records as owned by the David James Bolt Irrevocable Trust, Jimm Bolt and Annette Gore, trustees. The filings allege Bolt and Situs Cancer Research Center received nearly $2 million through wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering in January 2013. No charges have been filed.
It’s not the first time Bolt has been accused of fraud.
Attorney Herb Southern, who represents Bolt, is quick to point out that last time the FBI investigated Bolt for wire fraud, he was acquitted.
In 2006 Bolt was searching for backers for a company called Shimoda-Atlantic, Southern said. Xenavex, an oleander plant derivative, would have been marketed as a cancer treatment through the company, according to a federal court filing.
Bolt was ready to start clinical trials and needed money, Southern said, when he was approached by an undercover FBI agent.
Bolt and co-defendants Melvin Robinson, John Dodge and Leroy Hoback were accused of agreeing to hide a $325,000 kickback to the man who set up the financing in return for a $2.5 million investment, according to court documents. The broker and backer were both FBI agents.
The men were acquitted in March 2007.
A countersuit Bolt and Dodge filed against Andy Lee, former Benton County sheriff, and Nelson Erdmann, a member of Lee’s staff, was settled out of court in 2004.
Lee and Erdmann in 2000 filed a defamation lawsuit against 17 people, including Bolt and Dodge, claiming they planned to embarrass and harass Lee during a re-election bid by creating a fictitious outreach to Muslim inmates in the Benton County Jail.
At A Glance
In A Nutshell
A search warrant served by FBI agents on June 27 resulted in the search of three Rogers properties connected to Situs Cancer Research Center: 1204 W. Poplar St., 1222 W. Poplar St. and 303 Rife Drive.
An affidavit filed July 2 in U.S. District Court Western District of Arkansas requested forfeiture of the three properties in connection with wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering.
Papers filed through the U.S. Attorney’s office linked Jim Bolt, executive director of Situs Cancer Research Center, with shares redeemed from unclaimed property at the California Sate Controller’s Office, owned by Pacific Financial Research. Bolt presented documentation saying Pacific Financial Research donated company property to Situs, requested the shares sold and received $1,892,170. Bolt purchased the three Rogers properties with the money.
Signatures of two Pacific Financial Research employees appeared on the paperwork, but both told federal agents they did not sign them. The name of the California notary who signed the documents did not match what was on file with the state.
Source: U.S. District Court affidavit
Lee and Erdmann said libelous statements included assertions they misused public money, were corrupt and were associated with right-wing militia. Countersuits were filed. Lee and Erdmann dropped their suit in 2001. Bolt’s countersuit was the only one remaining when it was settled with an undisclosed sum in 2004.
Several lawsuits between Bolt, then operating a television station as Golf Entertainment, and the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal ended with Bolt being required to pay court costs in 2004.
Bolt’s court battles, however, started years earlier.
On Dec. 9, 1992, he was sentenced to three years for felony theft of property in Washington County Circuit Court. A customer attempted to have a hard drive serviced under warranty at Megabyte Connection Point in July 1992, but when store personnel checked, records showed the drive was never sold. Bolt, a former service manager at the store, had given the drive to a friend as a gift a year before, according to court documents.
The sentencing document for the Washington County case notes Bolt was serving probation at that time in connection with a June 1985 sentence in Oklahoma of two counts of mail fraud and making false statements to a federally insured bank.
Phone calls to the clinic cycle through an automated system that offers to connect by last name, but doesn’t ring through to any clinic employee, including Bolt. Calls to his cellphone seeking comment weren’t returned.
Asked Thursday if the clinic is still operating, Southern said he didn’t know. Southern’s office is in Fayetteville and the clinic is in Rogers.
Bolt has shown an interest in alternative medicine throughout the 10 years he has known him, Southern said.
Situs has provided a vitamin C injection treatment to patients, said G. Doty Murphy, a Springdale doctor who said he volunteered at the clinic until last year. Murphy spoke immediately after the FBI raid at Situs.
Carol McMakin, developer of Frequency Specific Microcurrent Seminars, said she knows Bolt as a researcher interested in alternative therapies. Bolt told her he studied to become a doctor, but abandoned his residency because of the way patients were treated, opting instead for a scientific post-doctoral degree.
McMakin operates a Portland, Ore., clinic, according to her website.
Bolt was a passionate speaker at a frequency specific microcurrent conference in February, McMakin said. Frequency specific microcurrent uses differing frequencies to deliver a targeted electrical microcurrent to the muscles. McMakin said she remembers Bolt speaking about treating nerve damage in diabetic patients using frequency specific microcurrent and his enthusiasm for doses of injectable vitamin C.
“He goes through case after case after case. He has passion and dedication. That’s hard to fake,” McMakin said.
Bolt had been using the therapy for about a year and a half, McMakin said. Patient records showed success
What Is That?
Mail Fraud
• Mail fraud, in short, is any kind of fraud that involves mail sent through the U.S. Postal Service.
• Wire fraud involves false promises transmitted by wire, radio or television. This can include the Internet and email.
• Money laundering is defined as financial transactions created to hide the source of illegally gained money and can include tax evasion, false accounting and the use of shell companies.
Source: Staff Report
in reducing inflammation, Bolt told the audience.
Some practitioners look at results, but Bolt went beyond that, McMakin said.
“He actually got it. He’s enough of a scientist that he actually understands,” she said.
The symposium schedule showed Bolt was to speak about patients in a chronic vegetative state. McMakin’s website lists three people at the Situs clinic certified in the therapy, a medical assistant, clinical researcher and a “vet. nurse”. Several attended an intensive three-day training in March, McMakin said.
McMakin said she was unaware of previous charges against Bolt. She believes he’s being investigated because of his interest in alternative medicine.
Bolt told McMakin he kept his now-late wife, Yvonne Bolt, alive for seven years with alternative medical treatments.
The family heard for three or four years Yvonne Bolt’s cancer was in or out of remission, said her brother Sean VanDerGracht of Largo, Fla.
Jim Bolt had a plan to search for a miraculous cure from South America, but family members asked him to seek more conventional treatment, VanDerGracht said.
Yvonne Bolt died of cancer in 2007.
Southern said Friday he was unable to reach Jim Bolt for comment. Southern didn’t return a call requesting comment on Bolt’s previous convictions.
Bolt was seeking money for Shimoda-Atlantic during his wife’s illness. Perhaps he thought Xenavex could have cured her, Southern said.
“We’ve known for 10,000 years it might be a treatment,” Southern said.
The current case against Bolt calls for forfeiture of the three properties because they were purchased in connection with mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. During their search of properties connected with Situs Cancer Research Center, the FBI also seized two mobile medical units, five airplanes, a box truck, a recreational vehicle and five passenger vehicles.
The July filings said Bolt cashed in shares connected with unclaimed California property belonging to Pacific Financial Research. Southern has previously said Bolt redeemed the shares in good faith.
Any new charges would be pending an ongoing investigation, said a spokeswoman for Conner Eldridge, U. S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas.