St. Ignatius buyer now in prison

Derrick Fincher, 48, the Spokane Valley resident who was sentenced last September in U.S. District Court in Spokane to more than 11 years in prison for swindling more than $2 million from three investors, is the person who purchased the former St. Ignatius Hospital building 16 months ago.

Fincher purchased the hospital building and grounds from Anthony Girges of Bellflower, Calif.

After he negotiated a purchase agreement for St. Ignatius, Fincher reached an agreement with the Colfax Chamber of Commerce to continue the “haunted hospital” tours in the St. Ignatius building. The tours have generated more than $100,000 revenue for the Chamber over the past five years. Colfax Downtown Association also participated in the sponsorship of the tours for a short time.

Val Gregory, executive director of the chamber and the association as well as the historical society, said the chamber arranged for tours to continue through a real estate company which has been trying to sell the property.

The St. Ignatius purchase was not a part of the charges involved in the U.S. court conviction involving Fincher, but it did have an impact.

Although the chamber was able to continue the tours after St. Ignatius changed hands, the status of the structure changed last year when the building was posted with a foreclosure sale notice.

The property was posted for a foreclosure sale at the entrance to the courthouse last summer, but the sale was never conducted because St. Ignatius became involved in a bankruptcy filing.

At the time he was sentenced Sept. 13, Fincher was ordered to pay $2,015,000 in restitution to the victims of his frauds, according to a Spokesman-Review report last September.

Vassily (Tony) A. Thompson, 65, Los Angeles, was sentenced to nine years in prison last Sept. 7, and John B. Nixon, Philadelphia, was sentenced to two years after he pleaded guilty the previous year.

Victims of the swindles were organizers of an ill-fated Coeur d’Alene celebrity golf tournament, a film studio venture in Montana and a developer of a construction project in North Carolina, accorded to the SR report.

As part of Nixon’s plea in October of 2017, he offered to testify against Thompson and Fincher, it added.