Broken Trust for Rodolphus Allen

THROUGHOUT the summer at least 2,000 people, many of them involved in businesses during the boom, made a last-ditch attempt to remain in control of their debt-laden properties. They did so by putting their faith in a mysterious property trust that it was claimed had found a way to split mortgages from properties themselves.

The trust, which ascribed to a quest for divine consciousness, said its secret would remain on a need-to-know basis and said those with doubts should stay out.

Even on those terms people paid up, signed in, and were told that when the time was right, the Rodolphus Allen trust would unveil its secret in court and strike down the mortgages.