“The Opportunity to Control Things”
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Welcome to Episode 20 of Hollow Hype. In Episode 19, local leaders in Ohio and West Virginia remember how Heidi reinvented herself, just a few years after serving prison time in California.
In Ann Arbor, Heidi has reinvented herself again, with an elaborate backstory and resume. Virtually all of it is either grossly exaggerated or wholly invented.
Heidi’s early investments in Ann Arbor were homes and apartments that she converted into Airbnb short term rentals. She also converted a former grocery store into a restaurant, coffee shop, and event space. Heidi has developed exactly one new building in Ann Arbor, but this is how Heidi described her business at a sustainability conference in 2024.
[Recorded presentation, 2024]
HEIDI:
We do a lot of green roofs we do a lot of like combination hardscape and then landscape. I guess my one simple thing would be whether it's the mass timber or the green roofs, or just kind of some of the bio design, it gives you something really great to organize around that's not structural. And I think that really helps you to build your community and just the ecosystem that feels different.
[MUSIC]
ELIZABETH NELSON:
My name is Elizabeth Nelson. From 2018 to 2022, I served on Ann Arbor City Council. That experience taught me a lot. Mostly, I learned: people will say just about anything if they think you’ll believe it. This is HOLLOW HYPE.
In the last several months people have reached out to me and shared information. They’ve led me to public documents I never would have known to look for. They’ve shared some of the same stories, the lies that Heidi got comfortable telling to multiple people. Sometimes Heidi couldn’t keep track of a lie and offered different explanations to the same person. I’ve learned a lot from emails, phone calls, and meetings with people who don’t dare speak out publicly. Everything they’ve told me is helpful, even if I can’t share it here.
I’m grateful to everyone who has trusted me not to expose them. Some people are scared of Heidi or scared of Heidi’s friends. I’m not scared of Heidi or anyone else.
I believe Heidi’s history is relevant to a lot of what is happening now.
For Heidi, Ann Arbor is just the most recent stop in a forty year career of fraud and deception. She didn’t just commit crimes in her twenties and again in her forties. That’s when she got caught. Heidi has lied about nearly every detail of her life.
The first nineteen episodes of Hollow Hype have bounced between past and present. I started with the information I knew best: how Heidi has interacted with city government in Ann Arbor. The rest of the story is more complicated.
Across five states, Heidi has used four different names. Every change reflected a new relationship. One with a man and two with women. She’s lived in California twice, once in the 1980s and again thirty years later. She’s registered a dozen or more LLCs, in five different states.
This episode is a review of the timeline, an opportunity to catch up on the sequence of events, in order. I have more context and details about some events, because listeners have reached out with more information. I’m grateful to all of the anonymous people who have helped me make sense of this story, behind the scenes.
[MUSIC]
As a young person, Heidi had talent and potential. She also had support.
She spent some of her childhood in Ann Arbor attending Slauson Middle School and Pioneer High School.
WILL HATHAWAY:
I remember that she became very active in sports.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Heidi’s time at Pioneer was interrupted– she attended another school her junior year, but came back for her senior year. For her last year of high school, Heidi lived with the Pioneer field hockey coach. She helped Heidi get scholarships for college.
In the fall of 1980, Heidi enrolled as a student athlete for the University of Michigan. She played field hockey and studied communications but left before earning her degree.
Without a degree, Heidi was able to get a job at Merrill Lynch in San Francisco. She worked as a registered broker-dealer starting in November 1984. Her career as a broker lasted less than two years. In 1986, Merrill Lynch discovered that Heidi was making unauthorized transactions. She was transferring stocks into a girlfriend’s portfolio, selling stocks without permission and transferring the proceeds into her girlfriend’s account. Heidi was indicted and convicted of two felony counts of wire fraud.
In May 1987, Heidi was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 5 years probation. The same month, she earned her degree in communications from the University of Michigan.
Heidi Ditchendorf was just 25 years old when she served time at a federal correctional facility in Spokane, Washington.
[MUSIC]
After prison on the west coast, Heidi moved to Marietta, Ohio, to be with family. This should have been an opportunity for a fresh start.
In Marietta, Heidi married a man and had two children. Her name changed to Heidi Laughery.
In the early 1990s, Heidi and her husband lived in a tiny 800 square foot home on the Muskingum river. According to Zillow, this home is currently valued at $33,000. It was a humble life for the field hockey captain from University of Michigan.
In 1994, Heidi and her husband began buying properties in downtown Marietta. They bought one property for $55,000, then a second property for $35,000. A third property cost just over $100,000. The expense of renovating these properties was significant.
In 1997, Heidi and her husband persuaded local friends to invest in a new project: the Marietta brewery company. Heidi was making an impression in a small town.
HARLEY NOLAND:
Good talker, promoter, smooth operator. In town, she and her husband were at one time the "it" couple, meaning people like being with them. And it seemed like she was the go-to happening person in town, making things happen.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Heidi began telling people that her college degree was in economics. She claimed to have interned on Wall Street and at Nike. She presented a biography for the person she wanted to be: a business professional. People in Marietta didn’t know that Heidi had served time in prison, that she was a convicted felon.
In 1998, Heidi was appointed development director for the city of Marietta. In that job, she connected with state level bureaucrats, navigated state and federal funding programs, and promoted a new city plan for technology. Heidi worked this job for only 18 months. After leaving that job, she launched Sequelle Communications. Sequelle promised to provide broadband internet and jobs to rural communities in Washington County, Ohio and Wood County, West Virginia. With support from then Ohio Congressmen Ted Strickland and West Virginia Congressman Allan Mollahan, Heidi was awarded over $3 million in federal funds.
LARRY MINCKS:
We all thought it was great if she could do this, and at the time, the way she was talking, she had sold everybody. They were convinced that hey, we're going to get Wi-Fi, I thought it was a great thing, and I was hoping it was going to happen.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Sequelle would be Heidi’s second criminal scheme. It was more ambitious than the first.
In April 2001, Heidi and her husband declared bankruptcy in Ohio. A few days later, Heidi reincorporated Sequelle Communications in West Virginia. She convinced the state of West Virginia to give her more money and unsecured loans. Between 2002 and 2004, Heidi coordinated the work of two Ohio LLCs, Truscom and Mentorgen. These companies generated invoices to Sequelle, which Heidi then submitted for reimbursement.
By 2005, Heidi had left her husband and was in a committed relationship with a woman named Betsy. Heidi abandoned Sequelle and moved to Columbus, Ohio. She and Betsy lived in a house on Andrew Hill Place. Heidi established a new LLC: Andrew Hill Family Limited Partnership, or AHFLP.
[MUSIC]
In 2008, Heidi was indicted on 12 felony charges related to Sequelle. She had misused federal and state funds, laundering the money through Mentorgen and Truscom. This indictment carried a potential sentence of over 100 years in prison. Heidi would plead guilty to just one of the twelve charges: conspiracy to commit money laundering. The Marietta Times reported that this single felony could lead to 10 years in prison. Ultimately, Heidi received the minimum sentence: just 18 months. She negotiated further and ended up serving only 60 days in a detention facility outside of Cleveland. Heidi’s sentence included 5 years probation.
After her conviction but before her sentencing, Heidi bought a house in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The mortgage listed a new name: Heidi Mitchell.
In 2010, three versions of Heidi existed in public records. Heidi Ditchendorf had been convicted of fraud in San Francisco and served time in prison. Heidi Laughery had been convicted of money laundering in West Virginia and narrowly avoided prison. Heidi Mitchell owned a house in Shaker Heights, Ohio.
The next few years are a jumble. Public documents list Heidi at four different addresses between Ohio and California.
In 2011, Heidi moved to California with her new wife, Betsy. Heidi and Betsy lived in lavish homes in Pasadena and South Pasadena. It’s unclear where the money came from.
In 2012, Heidi paid off the mortgage for the house in Shaker Heights– she’s listed at an address in Pasadena.
In 2013, Heidi bought her first house In Ann Arbor. She was still on probation. In mortgage documents with Flagstar bank, Heidi is listed at the address in Shaker Heights.
[Sound effect - female voices at party]
In 2014, Heidi attended a party in San Francisco. The Mecca 2.0 event is where she met Dr. Marge Vincent for the first time. After the event, Heidi pursued Marge, sending her messages online. Friends remember those messages because they recall Marge asking them “Which one was Heidi?” Heidi pursued Marge aggressively.
[MUSIC]
Marge lived in a beautiful home in Port Costa, California, near San Francisco. The house was historic, architecturally significant, and big. It was over 5,000 square feet, with a swimming pool and landscaped gardens. Friends remember how much Marge loved this home and how much care she had taken in decorating and maintaining it. Marge said that she wanted to live at the Port Costa house forever.
Some of Marge’s friends met Heidi. They remember that Marge was very proud of her, she was pleased to show Heidi off. Friends also remember Heidi saying strange things. At one point, Heidi boasted that she had a Ph.D. in Art. This was a lie she would later adjust to Art History. Heidi told people she had a bachelor’s degree in economics and a Ph.D. in Art History. Neither was real.
In 2015, Heidi and Betsy divorced. Heidi soon began buying Ann Arbor properties with Marge. Their first purchase together was a home at 1700 Packard. Sale documents list Heidi at Marge’s address in Port Costa. Mortgage documents list both Heidi and Marge at an address in South Pasadena, where Heidi had lived with Betsy.
In 2016, Heidi registered a Michigan LLC called AHFLP– she had registered an Ohio LLC with the same name, ten years earlier. Heidi registered another LLC in Wyoming called Prentice Partners of Ann Arbor. Five other variations of Prentice Partners LLCs were eventually registered in the state of Michigan. The LLCs billed each other for services.
For years, Heidi and Marge travelled back and forth between California and Ann Arbor. They built a portfolio of Ann Arbor homes and apartments that they converted into Airbnbs or short term rentals. Most of their properties were in a neighborhood called Lower Burns Park, just a short walk from the Michigan Stadium.
[MUSIC]
In 2018, Heidi set her sights on a new neighborhood just south of Lower Burns Park, across Stadium Boulevard.
SAM COPIS:
it's kind of a little neighborhood with four blocks. Some of them are very small because stadium cuts through. We have one commercial firm called Chemtech, which is a land surveyor. Avalon owns half of the city block I was on. Another city block is, I mean, probably 80% city housing, city owned housing.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
That’s my friend Sam. His family owns properties in Ann Arbor, which they rent to mostly students. His family owned one of the houses in that neighborhood.
SAM COPIS:
I lived on Henry for 20 years. 818 Henry was a property that my dad helped acquire from my grandpa, so my grandfather owned it, and it was a rental, and it was fairly far from campus, but my grandpa didn't feel like selling it for whatever reason, so I moved in because the rent was fairly cheap.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Henry Street is where Heidi built what would become a 66 bedroom complex of Airbnbs.
[MUSIC]
I crossed paths with Heidi in 2019, when I was on Ann Arbor City council. Heidi needed City approval for the Henry Street project. She claimed that the new development would provide housing for young professionals.
[Recorded meeting, 2018]
COUNCIL MEMBER ZACH ACKERMAN:
What's the intended Market?
HEIDI:
It's not Airbnb
COUNCIL MEMBER ZACH ACKERMAN:
Okay
ELIZABETH NELSON:
She lied to the City Planning Commission and she lied to me.
I was horrified when I realized what we had actually approved. The Henry Street project inspired me to push for city regulation of Airbnb or short term rentals.
In 2020, Ann Arbor City staff recommended that full-time short term rentals - homes that had no principal resident - should be banned in most of the city. A new ordinance would directly impact Heidi’s Airbnbs on Henry Street and in the neighborhood of Lower Burns Park. Heidi would be forced to adopt a new business model: no Airbnb, only long term residents. Heidi threatened to sue but a majority of City Council stood firm. We approved the ordinance drafted by City attorneys and recommended by City staff.
Discussion of this regulation prompted Heidi to begin making political donations to candidates for City Council. Between 2019 and 2024, Heidi gave $11,000 to City campaigns.
[MUSIC]
Ann Arbor City elections in 2020 were flooded with money, much of it from out of town and from political action committees. Candidates endorsed by Mayor Christopher Taylor spent double and triple what had been spent on previous campaigns. They swept every election. Heidi now had new friends on City Council. One of the first acts of a new Council majority was to direct amendments to the Airbnb ordinance. They asked staff to add loopholes that would protect Heidi’s businesses.
New Council Member Erica Briggs explained.
[Recorded meeting, 2021]
COUNCIL MEMBER ERICA BRIGGS:
Council made an error last September. and sometimes, you know, when Council makes errors, we go back and correct them.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
In December 2020, Heidi was granted over $6 million dollars in federal loans, as part of an economic stimulus program for COVID. Heidi received the money through the Michigan LLC she had established in 2016: AHFLP. It’s unclear what AHFLP does or why it would need $6 million in federal loans.
Around this time, Heidi and Marge changed their names together. Marge returned to her maiden name and Heidi adopted it. Marge Vincent became Marge Poscher. Heidi Mitchell became Heidi Poscher.
In 2022, Marge sold her beloved home in Port Costa for almost $2 million.
Marge also assumed majority ownership of assets and LLCs that she and Heidi had acquired and established together. Publicly, Heidi and Marge still presented themselves as co-owners, but on paper, Marge was in control. Dr. Marge Poscher had the impressive and legitimate resume to guarantee the loans for their businesses.
[MUSIC]
A second round of city elections were flooded with money. Heidi joined a small network of wealthy donors and PACs that now owned every single seat in Ann Arbor city government. At the second meeting of a new, unanimous City Council, Mayor Taylor announced Heidi as a nominee to the City’s Renters Commission.
[Recorded meeting, 2022]
MAYOR CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR:
I'd like to recommend the following nominees for your consideration to the Employees Retirement System Board of Trustees Mark Forster. To the Renters Commission Jordan Else, Heidi Poscher.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
When I noticed Heidi’s name on the agenda, I reached out to people I knew on the commission. They were shocked when I sent them articles about Heidi’s fight against the Airbnb ordinance. They had no idea who Heidi was. Council liaison to the Renters Commission, Travis Radina, had apparently endorsed Heidi. Radina had assured the chair of the Renters commission that Heidi was a good choice, a good person to serve on the commission.
Before she could be confirmed as a member of the renters commission, Mayor Taylor quietly removed Heidi’s name from the agenda. He found a different campaign donor to appoint to the commission.
[MUSIC]
Heidi was strategic in choosing local business partners. She hired Lisa Sauve, a member of the City Planning commission to help her convert a former grocery store into a restaurant and event space, called Venue. Sauve would be a useful partner for Heidi’s next project: Southtown.
For Southtown, Heidi and Marge bought every parcel on the block at State, Stimson, White, and Henry. This block is a stone’s throw from the Airbnbs on Henry Street, walking distance to the Michigan Stadium. It’s also next to railroad tracks, across the street from the Salvation Army store, and surrounded by affordable housing.
SAM COPIS:
You have people who qualify to live in the housing that's owned by the Ann Arbor Housing Commission, and then you have people who live in Avalon Housing, and I think they have income ceilings for that. And I think Stimson Apartments they're all one level — I knew one of my neighbors, Verma, I believe was her name, was in a wheelchair, so it was very conducive because there's no stairs for people who couldn't easily access stairs.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Heidi’s plans for this block would convert an affordable location into a massive complex of high-end luxury rental housing, plus more full-time airbnbs.
Heidi was now recognized as a “friend of the mayor.” This identity came with benefits. Mayor Taylor had a loyal group of cheerleaders who eagerly called in to every public meeting, offering praise and support. In 2023, Heidi asked the City Planning commission to rezone the block of Southtown. The Mayor’s cheerleaders were happy to help promote it.
[Recorded meeting, 2023]
LUIS VASQUEZ:
I would like to see it move forward expeditiously with or perhaps some of the minor tweaks and variances Etc. This looks like a great project overall.
BRANDON DIMCHEFF:
I hope you approve the project tonight without delaying it.
ALEX LOWE:
I think that that this development is really good. I’m sad that it can't be any bigger but yeah you you take what you can get right.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Council Liaison to the Planning Commission, Lisa Disch, was also supportive. She pushed back on concerns about the short term rentals, or STRs.
[Recorded meeting, 2023]
COUNCIL MEMBER LISA DISCH:
The market pushes for STRs, because you can make a lot more money with them. And I,- I completely understand the idea that um some portion of this project might be used as STRs uh as it gets itself on its feet
ELIZABETH NELSON:
In 2023, the city Planning Commission approved the rezoning for Southtown, including an allowance for more new short term rentals, or Airbnb. At City Council, the rezoning was also approved, unanimously.
Council Member Travis Radina gushed with praise for Heidi and Marge.
[Recorded meeting, 2023]
COUNCIL MEMBER TRAVIS RADINA:
I'm just really grateful for the community centered team that worked to build this. You know, we often hear a lot of scare tactics about developers who are investing in our community but you can find this development team right around the corner at Venue quite often.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
One month after City Council approved Southtown, Heidi donated $5,000 to Mayor Taylor’s political action committee. These funds would support other City candidates endorsed by the Mayor.
[Sound effect - restaurant noise]
Council Members now regularly socialized with Heidi and Marge at their restaurant, Venue. Local leaders hosted parties and political fundraisers at Venue. Heidi told a room full of people that she worked with City leaders “every day.”
In 2024, Heidi requested that the Southtown block be rezoned again. She had a new plan that would use natural gas and fuel cells to create a microgrid. What Heidi proposed had never been done before in Ann Arbor. City staff acknowledged that they didn’t understand the technology, but they were excited to rely on Heidi’s expertise moving forward.
The city Planning Commission and City Council approved a second rezoning for Southtown.
[MUSIC]
Heidi had now established herself as a developer who specialized in “sustainable” technologies. She travelled to conferences representing the city. She participated in discussion panels alongside city staff. The city’s director of Sustainability and Innovations, Dr. Missy Stults, identified Heidi as an important community partner. In promoting herself, Heidi claimed to have had a long career consulting with “some of the largest domestic investor-owned utilities.”
The hypothetical development at Southtown became legend.
[Recorded presentation, 2024]
HEIDI:
Yeah I think the big thing that we're doing just in terms of the overall P&L and the kind of the financial success of the building, but also just in terms of the overall sustainability is really disrupting that energy model. You know the utilities are struggling anyway to deliver sustainably and affordably. And so you know, making the decision to go fully behind the meter and provide all of the electricity, really gives us the opportunity to control things like reliability, sustainability costs over a long period of time. It allows us to have the energy be more in line with our sustainable objectives and really be able to control that. And then it also gives us the opportunity to collect a lot of data that typically would be in the hands of the utility, but isn't being used for the benefit of the customers. So that's you know it was a big step for us since they were going to go ahead and not even connect with the electricity. They're going to, we're going to develop, we're going to generate 100% of our own power. But that also gives us a lot of different directions ahead in financially as we develop that data and really add to the sustainability and the development.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
In 2024, Heidi and Marge wanted to buy a city-owned property at 415 W Washington.
[Recorded meeting, 2024]
MAYOR CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR:
Resolution to approve entering into a six-month negotiating period for the possible sale of the 415 West Washington site.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
The sale of this property had been debated at City Council. Just a few years earlier, staff had emphasized that any sale should be subject to an open, competitive bidding process among potential developers. Heidi and Marge promised to use 415 W Washington to build a project similar to Southtown. City staff were convinced. They told City Council that this proposal was so impressive that an open, competitive bidding process would never result in anything else as good. They recommended that City Council negotiate exclusively with Heidi and Marge. The mayor led a majority of City Council in approving the plan.
[MUSIC]
Three weeks after this vote, the Mayor’s political action committee quietly donated $5,000 to a local nonprofit. Around the same time, Heidi announced that the offer to buy 415 W Washington had been withdrawn. People were starting to figure out that something wasn’t quite right.
Information about Heidi’s criminal convictions was spreading privately among neighbors. Heidi began to publicly deny any association with Southtown, Venue, and other properties she had purchased with Marge.
In March 2025, students at the Michigan Daily published a story that outlined, in broad strokes, the crimes that Heidi had committed in California, Ohio, and West Virginia. Student journalists pointed out Heidi’s relationship to City Council and the Mayor. The story got little attention. Most people in Ann Arbor never saw it.
Meanwhile, Heidi and Marge’s businesses were struggling. They had leveraged an enormous amount of debt, restructuring loans and refinancing properties to borrow more and more money. There was no visible sign of progress at Southtown but Heidi was actively seeking investors. She circulated an appraisal claiming that the block was worth over $60 million. Local real estate experts are skeptical.
[MUSIC]
On October 10, 2025, Marge Poscher was found dead at 809 Henry Street. Heidi told police that she wasn’t home when it happened. She was in Cleveland for the day. On her way home from Cleveland, Heidi had called an employee to check on Marge. That employee found Marge dead in a bedroom, surrounded by suicide notes.
The notes outlined in painstaking detail how Heidi should use life insurance money to rescue their businesses. Heidi told Marge’s friends that the suicide came out of nowhere, that she had no idea what motivated it. Heidi directed City leaders to say nothing about Marge’s death and they agreed to remain silent.
After Marge’s death, Heidi took control of all the assets and LLCs that had been put in Marge’s name. She also announced a new name for herself: Caroline Poscher.
Heidi ordered the demolition and clearing of every structure and tree on the Southtown block. It is now a vacant lot growing weeds.
Earlier this year, Heidi filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy for Southtown. For the last ten months, Heidi has been negotiating a plan to settle that bankruptcy. The latest plan would allow Heidi to walk away with $17 million. The next court hearing for the bankruptcy of Southtown is scheduled for November 20, 2026.
[MUSIC]
Between now and November 20th, this podcast is going to discuss unanswered questions around Marge’s death, one year ago.
I’ve heard from people who knew both Marge and Heidi. They witnessed the relationship between them. Many people saw how Marge and Heidi worked together in their businesses. They’ve noticed details that don’t add up. They have questions.
Thanks for listening.
Visit HollowHype.com to find more information about this episode.
Coming up in episode 21: a former city attorney filed Freedom of Information Act requests to every local office and department that investigated Marge’s death. From the beginning, everyone was aware that Heidi had friends at City Hall.
