Colorado has revoked the license of real estate agent Paul Guthrie and fined him $450,000 but says he will have to pay only 1% of that if he promises to never sell properties again.
Guthrie, who previously owned Investor’s Realty in Denver, was a real estate agent and property manager. Online complaints about his company repeatedly accuse it of running off with rents.
The Colorado Real Estate Commission investigated 13 allegations against Guthrie. On Jan. 28, it reached a stipulation agreement with Guthrie in which he acknowledged commingling funds, diverting his clients’ money, being incompetent and not holding clients’ funds.
Guthrie surrendered his license that day and agreed to a fine of $448,500, with $445,050 of that set aside and only charged to Guthrie if he seeks a real estate license in the future.
“Fines are calculated by the number of violations,” Real Estate Commission spokesman David Donnelly told BusinessDen. “The commission does not have the legal authority to issue restitution, so the amount of any fines imposed … is not correlated with any damages made to consumers.”
Donnelly said that setting aside fines is a concession the commission makes to resolve a disciplinary matter without litigation in cases where a broker is about to lose a license.
“Therefore, for a variety of reasons such as cost, time and certainty, stipulations, including those where a portion of fines is stayed, are in the interests of justice and furthering the (Colorado Real Estate) Division’s goals of consumer protection,” its spokesman said.
Guthrie, who now sells insurance, deferred comment to his lawyer, Warren Price of Murphy & Price in Colorado Springs. Price initially agreed to comment but later declined to.
The revocation of Guthrie’s license was referenced in a Feb. 2 lawsuit filed against him, his wife and Investor’s Realty. The plaintiff is a former assistant of Guthrie who won a $700,000 jury verdict against him and Investor’s Realty because she was fired after reporting that a colleague had sexually harassed her. In her new lawsuit, she contends that the Guthries sold their $3.8 million home in Washington Park ahead of the harassment trial in 2023 to avoid paying her.
The Guthries and Investor’s Realty have not yet responded to that lawsuit in court.
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