PHILADELPHIA — Five current and former members of the Philadelphia Eagles — including head coach Nick Sirianni and star running back Saquon Barkley — are set to headline a financial seminar at the Wells Fargo Center organized by a man whose companies have faced allegations of mismanagement, fraud or deceptive business practices, a Philadelphia Inquirer review has found.

On Saturday, Philadelphia’s 21,000-seat Wells Fargo Center will be transformed into the home of Life Surge, a Christian motivational speaking series and investing seminar that has visited dozens of cities across the U.S. over the past year. The Philadelphia event — billed as the “Champions of Faith” — has an ad promoting celebrity speakers, laser-lights, musicians and the chance to “learn how to create and multiply financial resources” using principles rooted in Christianity.

But public records show that dating to the 1990s, Life Surge founder and self-described “serial entrepreneur” Joe Johnson was a principal of at least a half dozen companies and charities that were subject to controversy or financial disarray.

A real estate brokerage Johnson founded prior to Life Surge is facing at least three active lawsuits alleging the company helped arrange millions of dollars of fraudulent tax breaks in multiple states. In addition, Johnson was sued for millions by a woman in connection to his role at a prior seminar company with a similar business model to Life Surge.

Amy Wolfe of Naples, Fla., in 2012 sought judgments against companies Johnson controlled, alleging that he had reneged on a $12 million loan, court records show. A judge issued orders in Wolfe’s favor in 2014, freezing 10 bank accounts connected to the companies and later demanding they turn over their contents to her as repayment. Receipts filed with the court show those accounts contained only $30,000.

In an interview on Tuesday, Wolfe said Johnson befriended her after she attended events hosted by Get Motivated, a seminar company where Johnson worked as CFO. After he learned she had millions of dollars from family stock investments, Johnson convinced her to loan him money to purchase Get Motivated from its founder, according to records.

She later sued and reached a settlement with Johnson, but she said she never recouped all she had lost. Wolfe says today that she still feels exploited.

“They’re predators who want to be your mentors, and they eventually weasel dollars out of you,” Wolfe said of the Get Motivated seminars. “It happened to me.”

Some attendees of the recent Life Surge seminars have publicly complained that Johnson’s new company exploits the Christian faith and the allure of the famous speakers as a cover for “bait and switch” sales tactics pitching a series of weekend investing seminars. There, Life Surge sells “advanced educational opportunities” featuring mentors who dispense financial advice that can cost nearly $40,000. On-the-spot financing from a third-party is offered to cover these costs, and two clients interviewed by the Inquirer said speakers encouraged them to dip into retirement funds.

Life Surge spokesperson Jennifer Willingham said the company’s initial events are affordably priced and feature money back guarantees. Any additional training, she said, is optional.

“We’re clear about that on our website,” Willingham said. “These opportunities vary in scope and price, and participation is completely voluntary, as is attendance at our events.”

She added that Life Surge has seen an overwhelmingly positive response from its attendees, and noted the nearly 5-star reviews from Google, Better Business Bureau and Trustpilot.

Testimonials from hundreds of past attendees praise the events, with one reviewer saying they can help people start on a “road to surge financially for the benefit of your family and God’s kingdom.”

“Our year-to-date satisfaction rating exceeds 98 percent,” Willingham said, citing “internal surveys.”

Johnson declined to be interviewed for this story. In a written response to questions about his business history, he said he has been open about his “failures and struggles as an entrepreneur, and how, by God’s grace, I went from a season of hardship to building a successful real estate investment career and ultimately founding Life Surge to help others on similar journeys.”

He acknowledged that Wolfe gave him a loan he couldn’t repay on time, but said she called in the note when he was “just three days late on a payment.” He said he ultimately handed over his businesses’ assets to Wolfe and does not currently owe her any money.

“I lost everything when that note was called,” he said. “That experience, though difficult, taught me valuable lessons — both in what to do and what to avoid as a business leader."

Contacted this week about Life Surge, a Philadelphia Eagles spokesperson said their organization “is not affiliated with the event.”

The current Life Surge ads have a conspicuous absence of any team or NFL branding, and the word “Eagles” is never mentioned. The graphic describes Sirianni as a “National Football Champion Head Coach,” and Barkley, Cooper DeJean and Brandon Graham are labeled “National Football Champions.” Brian Dawkins is listed as a “Hall of Fame Football Legend.”

But as recently as March 25, the main image for the event prominently featured the word “Philadelphia” in a font similar to the one the Eagles used from 1996-2021. The earlier image also described Sirianni as the “Philadelphia Eagles Head Coach.”

Sirianni, Barkley, Graham and Dawkins did not respond to requests for comment submitted through the team or their agents. Willingham declined to disclose how much Sirianni and the players would earn for their appearance but confirmed they are “paid solely on a flat fee basis.”

In a news conference after practice on Wednesday, Eagles cornerback DeJean said of the upcoming Life Surge event: “They came to my management team and asked me about it. That’s how it approached me.”

The Inquirer was unable to ask him a follow-up question, and he did not respond to queries sent to the team.

Life Surge hosted 30 events across the U.S. last year, according to its website. Banner ads for past events feature celebrity speakers who are well-known Christian conservatives, such as Tim Tebow, Kayleigh McEnany and pretzel magnate “Auntie” Anne Beiler. The company lists 17 events on its website from 2024 that it says were sold out, including stops in Houston, Boston and Atlanta.

Some attendees complained that they came to feel deceived by the company’s sales pitches, as Life Surge’s advertisements emphasize celebrity speakers and Christian fellowship over expensive classes.

Kevin Hinebaugh, 47, of Columbus, Ohio, said he was wowed by the Life Surge speakers at Truist Arena on the campus Northern Kentucky University in August 2024. He said he agreed to sign up for a $97 weekend of classes about stock trading, where he soon received a recommendation that he pay for even longer term mentorships priced between $20,000 and $40,000.

Hinebaugh said the speakers advised that he go into debt to pay for the opportunity, and that credit card applications were on hand to finance the mentorships. Hinebaugh said he filled out an application but changed his mind after his sister and brother-in-law talked him out of it.

“They tell you to mortgage what you got and cash out of your 401k to invest in this,” Hinebaugh said. “And if you couldn’t, they had people sitting there with credit card financing to do it.”

He lamented that Life Surge was “getting older people to sign up, who you could tell didn’t have a lot of money.” He has since soured on Life Surge, which he says uses Christian messaging to convince its customers to take on debts they can sometimes ill afford.

“I’m a Christian,” he said. “It was all Christian based. They said, ‘God wanted you to sign up for this stuff.’ And that really turned me off.”

From cutting lawns, to a $12M loan

In interviews and an online biography, Johnson tells the story of his humble beginnings that, through his strong faith, resulted in financial success.

He says that he is the child of Christian missionaries and that he launched his business career cutting lawns as a youth. He founded a landscaping company while attending Ashland University in Ohio, and learned an early lesson about making money.

“They’re paying me $25 bucks, but I can give my buddy $10 bucks to do it,” he said of landscaping work. “I became the middle man. I was very entrepreneurial.”

The landscaping company failed, Johnson said, after his “righthand man” later “took all his customers” and founded a competing business, saddling the young entrepreneur with some $300,000 in debt and a 1996 bankruptcy.

Johnson said he “went back and paid everyone I owed seven years later” to settle the debts linked to the bankruptcy. However, according to three 2020 court liens filed in Richland County Court of Common Pleas, Johnson’s defunct landscaping company years later still owes $23,000 in back taxes and penalties to the state of Ohio.

In his written responses to the Inquirer, Johnson states that he is “not aware of any outstanding debts, including the alleged back taxes mentioned.” He added that his “current credit score is over 800, and I have no liens, past-due obligations, or outstanding legal judgments.”

In the public interviews he’s given, Johnson says in the early 2000s, Peter Lowe, a Christian motivational speaker who founded Get Motivated Seminars, asked to partner with him to create a magazine he could sell to his event attendees. Johnson later became Get Motivated’s CFO and the owner of WealthRock, an affiliated company that sold investment education courses, according to news reports.

Get Motivated had a business model that Johnson would mimic years later when he created Life Surge. The company hosted arena events that attracted attendees with big name conservative Christian speakers like retired General Colin Powell, former first lady Laura Bush and billionaire Steve Forbes. It also included opportunities to learn about investments, and attendees were invited to pay as much as $20,000 for additional courses, according to The Seattle Times.

Wolfe says she started attending Get Motivated seminars around 2009. Her 2013 lawsuit states that Johnson took a “personal interest” in her, mentoring her in finance and later convincing her to loan him $12 million to help him buy Get Motivated from Lowe. The terms called for Johnson to repay the loan within one year of operating the company, according to a later lawsuit.

But Wolfe’s suit says Johnson quickly cited “internal complications” with the sale for delaying repayment. Although Johnson did eventually buy Get Motivated, Wolfe said she “never received a single loan payment.”

In 2012, Wolfe filed legal claims against Johnson’s companies, gaining control of their remaining assets. Johnson helmed Get Motivated for just six months, and the company shut down the same year.

In 2013, Wolfe sued Johnson and his companies for fraud, alleging that “large amounts of Plaintiff’s money was transferred elsewhere.” But after two more years of litigation, Wolfe said she became resigned to the fact that her money was gone, and she agreed to settle the suit in exchange for Johnson transferring real estate holdings to her, according to Wolfe.

Today, Johnson says the saga ruined him financially and that he effectively handed over control of his companies to Wolfe. But she estimates that she lost about $10 million due to her business dealings with Johnson, who she says manipulated her.

“I was so embarrassed.” she said. “It completely changed my life.”

Troubled tax deals

Johnson has led several other business endeavors centered around religious themes that ultimately ended in controversy.

Nonprofit disclosure forms dating to 2013 list Johnson as president and CEO of the Mercy Foundation Group, Inc., a charity that sought to provide microloans to people in impoverished countries. Mercy also controlled an affiliate that purportedly could help people earn lucrative tax breaks by selling distressed real estate at a discount to nonprofits.

These so-called “bargain sales” give sellers a generous tax deduction based on the difference between the property’s market value and the artificially low sale price.

A 2014 investigation by the Tampa Bay Times found they were the nonprofit’s main fundraising tool, and that the group spent most of the money it raised — more than $900,000 in one year — on salaries and expenses for Mercy’s employees, while spending just $70,000 on microloans. The Times also reported that another Johnson nonprofit — Seed America Foundation, which aimed to raise money to create a business school founded on Christian values — also marketed bargain sales before filing for bankruptcy in 2010 with over $16 million in debts.

Johnson told The Times that Mercy’s fundraising approach was ‘’not for the faint of heart."

“But five years from now,” he told the outlet, “Mercy ought to be doing millions [in loans] to underprivileged entrepreneurs.”

That was not the case. Instead, by 2018 Mercy had also shut down.

In his response to the Inquirer, Johnson said Seed America Foundation “faced significant challenges” due to the Great Recession, but that Mercy “was properly wound down” with “no debts owed and no outstanding obligations” after he stepped aside “to pursue other entrepreneurial ventures.”

After his stints with the nonprofits, Johnson in 2014 started the Welfont Group, a real estate brokerage that also facilitated bargain sales, but in a for-profit capacity.

According to at least six lawsuits filed between 2018 and this year, deals Welfont handled were later denied by the IRS over inflated appraisals, costing former clients millions.

A 2021 lawsuit filed by investors with properties in South Carolina alleges that in 2017, they paid Welfont a $37,500 commission for arranging a bargain sale to a nonprofit Christian ministry. Welfont hired an appraiser that assessed the property’s value at $5.6 million. After the nonprofit bought the property for $2.5 million, the investors claimed a tax deduction for the difference — $3.1 million.

The lawsuit states the IRS later flagged the deal, saying Welfont’s appraiser had inflated the property’s value by nearly $1.6 million, which cost the investors $552,830 in reduced tax deductions. The suit also says Welfont and the nonprofit later flipped the property for a profit – although for far less than the appraised price.

At least five other similar lawsuits have been filed against Welfont and its appraisers, each alleging that they inflated property values and led the IRS to retroactively cancel millions in tax deductions.

Three cases have been dismissed or ended with confidential settlements. But the South Carolina case ended in a 2022 default judgment against Welfont totaling $626,000. So did another case filed in Tennessee the same year, although the exact amount of damages are still being appealed.

A second case in South Carolina, filed last December, cited $3.6 million in damages from a 2017 bargain sale. Although the case is also still pending, a judge issued a third default judgement in April against Welfont.

“It’s a matter of public record that people that took advice from Welfont had serious financial losses, many of which were seven figures,” Rob Wilder, the attorney representing the plaintiffs in that case, told the Inquirer on Thursday. He said damages are still being determined.

Although he is not named as a defendant in the suits, an online resume says Johnson was the “CEO, founder and shareholder” of Welfont until 2019. All of the real estate deals cited in the lawsuits date to Johnson’s tenure there.

In his statement to the Inquirer, Johnson said he had no knowledge of “active or pending lawsuits against Welfont.”

“I am not aware of any legal actions involving me personally in relation to Welfont’s operations,” he said. “Since I was not a party to any of the lawsuits you’ve referenced, I have no information to provide and cannot comment on them.”

Johnson’s business partner, Shawn Marcell, is still listed as Welfont’s CEO and is personally named as a defendant in at least one suit.

Marcell was named as the president of Life Surge in 2024. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Faith broken

When St. Louis resident John Simmons saw advertisements for Life Surge on Facebook and on billboards around town in 2023, his interest piqued.

The religious messaging and celebrity Christian speakers appealed to Simmons, but so did the prospect that he could learn practical advice about improving his finances.

Simmons, 41, a minister, struggled with gambling addiction in the past — losing half a million dollars to bad bets, he estimated — and he admitted that he was “not always the best” at managing money.”

“That’s sort of what drew me to Life Surge to begin with,” Simmons said. “Maybe I could learn something about this whole Christian money deal.”

As the daylong event progressed, Simmons said he realized he wouldn’t be leaving with any special knowledge about investing. The celebrity speakers were on and then off the stage within 10 to 25 minutes each, and he said they offered no practical investing advice.

Instead, Simmons said roughly three hours out of the eight-hour-long conference were devoted to sales pitches for a pair of three-day real estate and stock market classes.

Simmons likened the event to a “time [share] sales presentation.”

He posted a YouTube video describing his experience. That video and a separate minute-long summary garnered two copyright complaints from Life Surge via Status Labs, a “reputation management company” that says it can help a company “look its absolute best in search results.” Life Surge general counsel Marie Code also sent Simmons a cease and desist letter.

The complaint states Simmons’ videos contained footage from Life Surge’s website and Instagram profile, which the company wrote in the cease and desist “constitutes copyright infringement.”

He has since re-uploaded his review — minus Life Surge’s material — along with another video about Life Surge. He considers his warnings about the company a helpful public service, and he said he’s received a flood of interest from people sharing their own experiences or seeking more information.

“I would want to know in advance what I was walking into,” Simmons said. “I wanted to be someone who can warn somebody to not do it in the future.”

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