Colorado dentist was knee-deep in personal and professional debt

EXCLUSIVE: Dud crypto schemes sent Colorado dentist BANKRUPT and facing ruin with $2 million debt as his practice hemorrhaged $120,000 a month – before he began ‘poisoning wife to death’ so he could start new life with orthodontist lover

• Jim Craig’s Summerbrook dental practice in Aurora, Colorado, was losing $120,000 a month, while he himself had racked up $2M in personal debt
• DailyMail.com can reveal Craig, 45, had made a series of disastrous investments, including a crypto Ponzi scheme that duped him out more than $600,000
• He filed for professional and personal bankruptcy in 2020, with the last filing on his practice made March 1 – days before he allegedly started poisoning his wife

The Colorado dentist accused of slowly poisoning his wife to death was on the brink of professional and personal ruin caused by bad investments in worthless cryptocurrencies, DailyMail.com has learned.  

Jim Craig, 45, is charged with first degree murder for allegedly poisoning wife Angela, 43, mother to his six children, by putting potassium cyanide into her protein smoothies.

Now, DailyMail.com can reveal, that Craig’s carefully curated life was nothing more than an elaborate façade on the cusp of implosion.

Colorado dentist Jim Craig – pictured during his March 23 arraignment – was facing professional and personal ruin in the lead up to his wife’s death after racking up a mountain of debt, DailyMail.com can reveal 

With his dental business going bust and his personal finances in dire straits, Craig, 45, was purportedly plotting to start a new life with his mistress as he allegedly slowly poisoned his wife Angela (right) to death 

DailyMail.com can reveal Craig filed for both professional and personal bankruptcy in 2020, with liabilities totaling over $2.2million, filings show 

Not only was the ‘doting’ husband and father allegedly plotting to start a new life with his mistress, he was mired in more than $2million of personal debt while his ‘successful’ dental practice was hemorrhaging money to the tune of roughly $120,000 a month.

Craig filed for both personal and professional bankruptcy in 2020. His personal case wrapped up last July.

Summerbrook Dental’s case moved closer to completion earlier this month, with the latest filing on March 1 – just four days before Craig is alleged to have started poisoning his wife.

Filings obtained by DailyMail.com lay bare the full extent of his crippling debts which he accrued through reckless spending and mismanagement and compounded with a series of disastrous investments.

Indeed, despite pre-tax personal earnings for 2019 listed at $778,107, Craig was unable to keep himself and his family afloat.

In November and December 2019, he attempted to prop up his business by pouring more than a million dollars in three separate tranches into worthless crypto currency, Xtroption.gold – a coin that has become known as ‘fool’s gold’ – in which he had invested.

And, in a perhaps desperate bid to dig himself out of his financial hole, that same year he fell victim to a crypto Ponzi scheme that saw him lose another $600,000.

DailyMail.com has learned Craig is among several victims listed in a federal fraud suit filed against James Wolfgramm in Utah last September.

Wolfgramm is accused of posing online as a crypto multimillionaire and bilking multiple victims out of millions through his company Bitex.

Staff at Summerbrook Dental told DailyMail.com about Craig’s motivational staff speeches and aspirational advertisements, but behind the scenes his practice finances were in a state of utter disarray

A former worker at Summerbrook Dental previously told DailyMail.com: ‘We’re all just in shock. He was a very good guy, like the least likely person for any of this’

Interior lobby of Jim Craig’s Summerbrook Dental practice in Aurora, Colorado

Craig’s pre-taxed earnings for 2018 were listed at $778,107, but the dad-of-six still could not keep his family afloat 

The suit, obtained by DailyMail.com, details how victim ‘J.C.’ traveled to Bitex’s base in Utah to purchase three, ‘high-end ‘Bitext Block Buster’ machines,’ at a cost of $675,000.

Craig believed these machines could generate earnings of more than $40,000 a month. But the machines did not exist.

According to the suit, when Craig questioned when he was going to get the machines, the alleged conman lulled him into a false sense of security by signing a ‘personal guarantee’ and a ‘collateral agreement,’ both of which pledged a Florida home worth $15million as collateral for the joint venture. 

Wolfgramm failed to disclose that he did not, and never had, owned the home in question, the suit says.

For his part, Craig had taken out two loans against his own home in Aurora, Colorado.

Pictures obtained by DailyMail.com show the expansive property in an upscale neighborhood with a neatly tended garden complete with fire-pit, grill, hot-tub, trampoline and sandpit.

But where Craig had once owned the $1 million property outright, records show that in 2019 he took out two loans against it, one of $242,697 and a second of $675,000.

He also owed $314,998 to the IRS and was carrying $750,000 of other debts including more than $200,000 on assorted credit cards. In total Craig listed his assets at $1,967,496.57. 

Jim and Angela Craig pose for a family picture with their six children aged eight to 20

Craig had owned his $1million home in Aurora, Colorado but documents show he took out two loans against his the property in 2019

According to filings Craig secured two loans, one for $242,697 and a second of $675,000, against his family’s house

Filings show the $675,000 loan secured against the Craigs’ $1million house in Aurora 

Bizarrely, they include a company called, Big Fat Bahonkus Inc which he registered in Wyoming in 2010. 

Annual filings show that he later transferred a ‘branch’ of BFB Inc to Aurora, Colorado, listing wife Angela as company secretary and its earnings in 2019 at $7,500 though the nature of the business is unclear.

ANGELA CRAIG’S FAMILY LAUNCHES GOFUNDME ACCOUNT

The family of Angela Craig, allegedly poisoned to death by her husband Jim, has set up a GoFundMe site for her six children.

The siblings aged between 8 and 21 have been left motherless by 43-year-old Angela’s death on March 18, three days after she slipped from consciousness after suffering a devastating seizure in University Hospital, Aurora, Colorado.

Dentist husband, Jim Craig, 45, was officially charged with first degree murder with intent after deliberation last Thursday, accused of slowly poisoning to death his wife of more than two decades by putting potassium cyanide in protein shakes he made for her.

Now the children’s aunt, Angela’s older sister, Cheri Pray Earl, 63, has established The Angela Pray Craig Children’s Fund.

On the GoFundMe page set up Monday, she describes how the children as having lost both their parents due to ‘a recent tragic event that has shocked and saddened us all.’

Craig is currently in custody at Arapahoe County Detention Center and will make his second court appearance April 7.

According to Pray Earl, ‘Many of our friends and family have asked us to create a fund so they can show their love and support for Angela and her six children.’

She continues, ‘The full story is in the news, so to be sensitive to the children and the family, we won’t retell it here.’

She rehearses the basic details, stating that Angela’s death has been ruled suspicious and her husband charged in connection with it and directs anyone wanting more information to the lengthy affidavit posted on the Aurora Police Department or Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department websites.

By 1 pm Tuesday, the appeal had raised $18,160 of its $100,000 goal. 

Another intriguing entry comes amid the items he lists as owning. Alongside cars, furniture, clothes, wedding rings and a fake Rolex are one suppressor (silencer) and one shotgun (Remington 870).

Craig does not possess a hunting license or note when he purchased the firearm.

He also lists three life insurance policies on his wife, two of which have no listed value, one of which has a value of $80,778.90.

It represents a drop in the ocean when set beside the total liabilities, which Craig lists as $2,254,720.56, though it would cover the almost $60,000 worth of attorney’s fees in the Summerbrook Dental bankruptcy case for which he became liable on March 1.

Because, while staff at Summerbrook Dental told DailyMail.com about Craig’s motivational staff speeches and aspirational advertisements, his practice finances were in a state of utter disarray.

In a personal affidavit submitted by Craig in the Summerbrook case, he took no personal responsibility for the disastrous state of the practice, instead blaming a Dr. Chris Brady whom he had taken on in 2017 and who, he stated, suggested he ‘restructure the business model.’

This new model incurred increased expenses and taking on a new dentist who ‘proved to be highly ineffective.’

Craig states that that dentist was then replaced but that it was too late to redress the losses incurred. 

In order to meet ‘increasing expenses’ he took out loans totaling $1,744,772.21.

One resulted in a lawsuit being brought against him. In November 2019 he received a $100,000 cash advance from LG Funding LLC in an agreement which would see him repay $136,000.

Instead he attempted to repay the loan with cryptocurrency, which the firm would not accept.

They accused him of altering the contract between them and deliberately trying to defraud them. 

For example, among a host of changes to the original contract, was one to a clause in which Summerbrook agreed to allow LG Funding to investigate its financial responsibilities and history.

In the contract, returned and signed by Craig, that clause had been reworded to read that Summerbrook would NOT permit such investigations.

The resultant lawsuit against Craig, brought in New York, is still pending.

And while Craig’s business bankruptcy declaration blamed everyone and everything but himself for the practice’s dire straits, there are eyebrow-raising expenses listed in the company accounts for 2020 obtained by DailyMail.com.

Most notable among them is $28,867 on ‘Meals and Entertainment’ and $60,528 on ‘Travel.’

Angela’s brother and Craig’s brother-in-law Mark Pray said both sides of the family have been focused on caring for the couple’s children since her death. They are pictured with five of their six kids

In his bankruptcy filings, Craig listed his assets which included cars, furniture, clothes, wedding rings and a fake Rolex as well as one suppressor (silencer) and one shotgun (Remington 870)

He also lists three life insurance policies on his wife, two of which have no listed value, one of which has a value of $80,778.90

Records show Craig attempted to prop up his business by pouring more than a million dollars into worthless crypto currency, Xtroptions.gold – a coin that has become known as ‘fool’s gold’

The lengthy probable cause affidavit released last week showed that Craig flew his orthodontist mistress, Karin Cain, 49, from Marble Falls, Texas, to Colorado earlier this month while his wife lay hospitalized and dying. He also made trips to see her.

The document also revealed that Craig gambled and claimed to have been addicted to porn since he was a teenager.

Angela Craig was pronounced dead on March 18, three days after suffering a devastating seizure that left her intubated, unconscious, with no brain activity and in Intensive Care.

She had arrived at University Hospital with her brother, Mark Pray, 54, on the morning of March 15, when she complained of a severe headache and dizziness.

She suffered the seizure at 2pm that same day and began a rapid decline that left medics at a loss for diagnosis.

It was only when Craig’s friend of twenty years, Ryan Redfearn, shared information that Craig had ordered potassium cyanide to the business address that an investigation began.

According to the affidavit Redfearn had become involved in Craig’s practice in August 2022.

Craig wanted to start a new life with his mistress Karin Cain, an orthodontist from Marble Falls, Texas

In a personal affidavit submitted by Craig in the Summerbrook case, he took no personal responsibility for the disastrous state of the practice, instead blaming a Dr. Chris Brady who suggested he ‘restructure the business model’

He went to dental school with Craig and told law enforcement that Craig was a ‘risk taker’ who had filed for bankruptcy before and was on the verge of bankruptcy again.

Redfearn also told detectives that Craig had confided in him that he and Angela were having marital problems.

Search warrants issued for Craig’s home and business saw police retrieve search history records that showed he had not only researched untraceable poisons but ordered arsenic to his home February 27.

Angela first entered hospital complaining of symptoms March 6.

Records also showed he ordered potassium cyanide to his office in a package that arrived March 13 – two days before Angela’s fatal seizure.

Craig is currently being held in Arapahoe County Detention Center. His next court appearance is scheduled for April 7.

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