Arlan Galbraith, the self-proclaimed Pigeon King, insists he
will be defending himself without a lawyer when his jury trial begins in a new
Kitchener courthouse Nov. 4.
He faces fraud charges after he declared bankruptcy for his
Pigeon King International Inc. business in 2008. Investors later pushed him
into personal bankruptcy.
He developed a business of selling breeding pairs of pigeons
at inflated prices, but promising to buy offspring at prices that would make
investors rich.
The business began to unravel when state officials in Iowa
barred him from doing business there on the basis that his setup was a Ponzi
scheme, meaning it could only survive as long as he could find new investors
whose money was used to pay existing investors.
There were about $20 million worth of long-term contracts
when Galbraith put the company into bankruptcy.
Galbraith insists there would be a steady stream of revenue
when he built and operated pigeon-processing plants to market the birds as
meat.
Facilities have been set aside for six to eight weeks for
the trial.
