Candace Owens Uncovers the Lori Frantzve Erpenbeck Fraud Scandal and Erika Kirk's Hidden Dating History

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Candace Owens Uncovers the Lori Frantzve Erpenbeck Fraud Scandal and Erika Kirk's Hidden Dating History

Candace Owens exposes shocking connections between Erika Kirk's mother Lori Frantzve and the infamous Erpenbeck family fraud scandal that defrauded banks of $34 million. Owens traces a disturbing pattern of financial scandals, mysterious LLCs, and alleged money laundering schemes surrounding Lori Frantzve, who now sits on the board of Super Feed Technologies alongside Turning Point Action COO Tyler Bowyer. The investigation reveals forged divorce documents, unnottarized agreements, multiple conflicting birth dates for Erika, and a web of business relationships with a family convicted of bank fraud, conspiracy, and attempted murder-for-hire plots. Owens also dismantles Erika's claim that she never dated anyone for five years before meeting Charlie Kirk, presenting evidence of multiple boyfriends during that exact period.

February 28, 2026

The Lori Frantzve and Tyler Bowyer Connection

Candace Owens continues her investigation into the circumstances surrounding Charlie Kirk's death and the future of Turning Point USA. According to Owens, the voice in Erika Kirk's ear is her mother, Lori Frantzve, who despite being seriously ill, was recently placed on the board of Super Feed Technologies alongside Turning Point Action COO Tyler Bowyer. Owens describes Boyer as a "shady dude" and notes that the two are effectively business partners.

Rumors have circulated online that money from Turning Point Action has been routed into Super Feed. While Owens states she cannot confirm this as she is not a forensic accountant, she emphasizes that these two individuals are "in cahoots." Owens previously broke the story that Tyler Bowyer is allegedly taking Turning Point into the real estate business.

The Disturbing Divorce Documents

Owens previously examined divorce documents between Lori Frantzve and Kent France, finding numerous irregularities including four different wedding dates listed across documents, an unnottarized childcare agreement, and conflicting birth dates for Erika. Initially, Owens cautioned that remaining documents might correct these discrepancies. However, after receiving all remaining documents, she confirmed that Erika's birthday is listed as November 22nd across all documents, not November 20th as initially reported in Cincinnati news sources. Erika's name is also spelled differently on several occasions.

The key revelation from these documents was the witness: Richard Erpenbeck. His address on the documents allowed Owens to definitively identify which Rick Erpenbeck was involved. The Erpenbeck name appears frequently throughout Lori's business dealings.

Lori Frantzve's Mysterious Business Empire

Owens describes Lori Frantzve's professional background as odd, similar to her daughter Erika's. According to the narrative, Lori was a model, then worked as a secretary during her second marriage, and then suddenly became a technological genius despite no evidence of such expertise. Lori has filed for numerous LLCs over the years, and Owens struggles to identify what these businesses actually do.

Over a 25-year period, Lori filed for multiple companies featuring Richard or Donna Erpenbeck as either secretary, incorporator, or notary:

  • Euroch (June 1993) - Richard featured
  • Euroch International UK (1995)
  • Techmetrics International (1993) - Richard Erpenbeck listed as secretary in 1998 documents
  • Techmetrics Limited International UK (1995)
  • Virtual Registration (December 1999) - both Donna and Rick Erpenbeck signed off
  • A-Tech (August 1997 in Arizona) - later renamed E3 Tech in 2017

Owens notes that when she sees numerous LLCs without clear purposes, especially ones identifying as technology companies, her instinct suggests potential money laundering, though she emphasizes this is her unprofessional opinion and there is no evidence of such activity.

The Erpenbeck Scandal Exposed

Richard Erpenbeck was part of a family involved in one of the most notorious fraud cases in Ohio and Kentucky history around 2002, coincidentally the same year Lori and Erika moved to Notre Dame Prep. The Erpenbeck Company was a massive homebuilding company owned and operated by generations of the Erpenbeck family, including four brothers: Bill, Rick, Gary (married to Donna Erpenbeck), Jeff, plus their father Tony, and sister Lori Anne Urban.

The Erpenbecks approached new homeowners offering construction help and ways to cut financial fees related to new home ownership, telling clients to pay them directly and they would handle the rest. However, homes were not being built and mortgages were not being paid. The scheme defrauded banks of $34 million, leaving hundreds of homebuyers on the hook for millions in unpaid mortgages.

The case featured forged documents and shady subcontractors. By 2004, sister Lori Anne Erpenbeck had apparently had enough of her family after learning her brother Bill had thought about killing her. When their father Tony offered her $500 for her birthday, he turned the conversation to her testimony about Bill, trying to convince her to lie under oath. Lori Anne told her lawyer about the conversation, and the FBI was brought in. She agreed to wear a wire to capture information.

Murder-for-Hire Plots and Federal Convictions

Over the next few days, Lori Anne Erpenbeck met with her father and brother Bill as they tried to convince her to agree to a fake storyline claiming she started the fraud to help the company's cash flow and it got over her head, then letting Bill assume responsibility. The FBI arrested both men based on the recordings.

Tony Erpenbeck's crimes escalated dramatically while in federal prison. He attempted to hire someone to murder US District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel and retired assistant US attorney Kathleen Brinkman. He also targeted an FBI agent's children, telling a would-be hitman to bury the agent's three kids in a casket with crackers, water, and an air pipe for 10 days. He recruited a fellow inmate about to be released to commit the crimes, offering to pay half a million dollars in gold stock upfront, then another half million from offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands after news of the kidnappings hit newspapers. The inmate flipped on Erpenbeck and wore a wire for the FBI.

Bill Erpenbeck was ultimately sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty, though a judge later shortened his sentence and he served 21 years. He received additional charges for threatening to kill his sister. Tony Erpenbeck was sentenced to 5 years and 10 months for bank fraud with a concurrent 60 months for obstruction of justice, then received another 20 years for attempting to hire a hitman to kill the judge, attorney, and FBI agent's children.

The Family's Legal Outcomes

Sister Lori Anne Erpenbeck served one year for one count of bank fraud. Brothers Gary and Jeff got off without charges. Rick Erpenbeck, the youngest, agreed to surrender his Kentucky legal license but otherwise avoided charges because his name was not on the business. However, he did testify, and during his testimony, a major mystery emerged: why had his father Tony transferred so much money to LLCs under Rick's control?

When asked about this during his deposition, Rick Erpenbeck testified: "You'd have to ask my dad what was in his head. I saw it as a good investment. He had always helped the other boys out from the beginning. I was the one who worked two jobs, three jobs through college, two jobs through law school, while he was helping out the other boys, the Erpenbeck Company, and he wanted to give me the opportunity to purchase these assets."

The homeowners who were defrauded never got their money back. While some money went to Bill's lavish lifestyle, the rest remains unaccounted for. In 2009, FBI agents dug up a cooler full of cash from Summit Hills Country Club in Crestview Hills that Bill Erpenbeck had buried, hoping to use after his release from prison. Bill was released from prison in 2024.

Unnottarized Documents and Irregularities

During the Erpenbeck trial, a notary testified that Bill Erpenbeck sometimes asked her to notarize documents when the people who supposedly signed them were not present, which is illegal. Owens points out this is exactly what she identified in Lori Frantzve's divorce documents before even knowing about the Erpenbeck connection. As a notary herself in New York, it struck her as highly unusual that anyone would sign away their rights to a court case and legal representation without a notary being present.

Why Continue the Relationship?

Owens finds it remarkable that despite being aware of who the Erpenbecks were and their involvement in a case that included coordinated murder attempts and kidnapping plots involving children, Lori Frantzve was not scared off from working with Rick Erpenbeck. Owens states that if her lawyer's family was in prison for such crimes, she would find another way to incorporate her LLCs rather than continue the relationship.

Owens also notes that Lori sent Erika to Tesseract School in Arizona, which suddenly had to shutter its doors due to another financial scandal where money evaporated and people suspected it was a scam. Later, Lori would work with the Farnsworths and strike up a partnership with Tyler Bowyer, the COO of Turning Point Action, who would introduce Erika to Charlie Kirk. In the background, Lori and Tyler would do business together.

Super Feed Technologies Controversy

When people questioned why Lori was a board member at Super Feed Technologies, Erika's answer was that they just needed a familiar name. Super Feed Technologies has been involved in scandal, with claims of bribery. A Yahoo News headline referred to "Kari Lake's bribery scandal involves a shady GOP tech firm," referencing Super Feed Technologies, which had its business revoked by the state of Arizona while it employed Jeff DeWit as former COO. Lake had received more than $100,000 from the entity according to personal financial disclosure filed.

Owens notes that Tyler Bowyer recently required a federal pardon from the President of the United States for fraud. He was credibly accused of nine felonies related to trying to subvert the election, including fraud, forgery, and conspiracy, and still faces state charges.

Tyler Bowyer and Real Estate Plans

Owens revealed that Tyler Bowyer is telling people Turning Point will now get into the real estate business to help young homeowners, claiming it was Charlie's vision. Boyer is allegedly saying that since Charlie always told students not to go to college and to instead get married young, the next logical step would be for Turning Point to help them become homeowners.

Missing Marriage Records

A researcher from Marblehead, Massachusetts offered to help search for documents and could not find any marriage documents for Lori and Kent France, though this does not definitively prove they don't exist. The researcher did find deeds where Lori and Kent had signed over their home in Marblehead. In these documents, Lori and Kent are listed as a couple from North Kingston, Rhode Island. However, Owens notes that "North Kingston" is not actually a place. There is Kingston, Rhode Island (essentially just the University of Rhode Island campus about 2 miles long), South Kingstown, and North Kingstown. Owens cannot find any trace of Lori and Kent having lived in Rhode Island and is asking Rhode Island researchers to investigate whether this couple can be found and whether they might have married there.

Erika's Educational Timeline

After Erika Frantzve left Tesseract in 2000 due to the school's financial crisis (ironically run by Jewish women and renting from a Jewish school despite Owens noting Jewish people are stereotypically known for good accounting), there is evidence Erika went back to Ohio for about three years from 2000 to 2002. She apparently attended St. Ursula Villa, which despite its name was not actually a Catholic school. Though located on St. Ursula Academy property, St. Ursula Villa was privately owned and funded, completely separate from the Catholic Church and the nuns who ran St. Ursula Academy. Owens cannot determine who was funding the school and is asking anyone with yearbooks from St. Ursula Villa from 2000 to 2003 to reach out if they remember Erika Frantzve.

What happens next is easier to document. Erika attended Notre Dame Prep, which was formerly the Tesseract School location in North Scottsdale that had shuttered and reopened. In 2003, she played volleyball and got involved in sports. It's also easy to track her because despite her claim that she got into pageantry after receiving a random mailer, Erika was involved in beauty pageants every single year from 2005 through 2012, a seven-year period, possibly longer if she competed while in Ohio.

Pageant World and Contradictory Narratives

Some pageant women disputed Erika's narrative that she was randomly invited, writing to Owens that minors in particular are not freely solicited to join pageant world and that a photo must be submitted by a parent or guardian. During an interview, Erika claimed: "The pageant world to me is something that it was an interesting season of life. It was nothing that I was ever groomed for. It was nothing that was ever on my radar. I just wanted to play professional basketball. That was my thing ever since I was five. I was a gym rat for lack of a better term. I remember getting something in the mail when I had come home from school one summer and it was like, 'Hey, you should compete at Miss Arizona USA. Someone nominated you.' And I was like, I don't know who would nominate me for that, but okay."

She went on to say the pageant world was not a form of narcissism but rather about being a steward for her state. Owens notes that if you have to say you weren't groomed for something, you probably were.

Detailed Timeline: 2005-2008

In 2005, Erika was still attending Notre Dame Prep playing basketball as a junior. She won first runner-up in the National American Miss Arizona pageant and represented Arizona at the All-American Miss Pageant in November 2005 in Los Angeles. That year, Lori Frantzve was listed in a House bill budget for the US Department of Homeland Security for another business called IMAT Laboratories.

In August 2006, just ahead of her senior year, Erika won the National American Miss Teen Pageant and traveled to Washington DC to present her plans to Representative JD Hayworth and Senator John Kyl. She became involved with a charity called Andrea's Closet which worked with a hospital in Winslow, Arizona for kids. Erika noted she stopped by that hospital often on the way to basketball games and wanted to establish her own charity in the future. That year, her father Kent France was listed as a risk assessment contractor trying to get more funding from the Department of Homeland Security. Lori had to close down Virtual Registration International Incorporated (the one Rick helped her open) because the tax department force-closed it for lack of tax filing.

In 2007, Erika's teen pageant year began (pageants are competed for at the end of one year and the crown is worn the following year). She graduated from Notre Dame Prep in spring 2007, receiving a full basketball and academic scholarship to Regis University in Denver, Colorado. She was also named a finalist for the Arizona Interscholastic Association's Everyday Heroes Award, which later became the name of her charity established in 2009.

During the 2007-2008 school year, Erika began playing basketball at Regis University. Owens found only two newspaper entries of her scoring: a November 24th game and one on December 1st against South Dakota. After that, she seemingly abandoned her scholarship based on the paper trail.

The Missing Year: 2008

Owens labels 2008 as "Erika's missing school year." While Erika claims she played basketball for two years and noted in a future Notre Dame alumni packet that she played at Regis University for two years, Owens could not confirm this. Regis University still has her basketball stat page up showing a record of her playing only from 2007 to 2008. Owens initially thought perhaps Erika stopped playing basketball to focus on her studies with her academic scholarship, but then discovered Erika herself confirms she went missing during this period.

In a 2020 interview that has since been removed (but which Owens saved), Erika confirmed that after passing her crown in 2007, she disappeared. Erika stated: "I prayed for God to just strip my ego from all of that stuff. All of that world, all of the plastic hat crown stuff with the banner. That was just, it was never, it was me from the standpoint of a philanthropic side, but the hometown hero thing was just weird and it was unhealthy and it was just ego fueling. So I locked myself in my room, basically turned into a hermit for about a good eight months. The only person I would see outside of my family was my pastor's wife. And we would go to the church and she would just pour into me every single day. And I just was reading scripture and read the Bible cover to cover multiple times."

Training to Become a Christian?

Owens questions how an active college student could see no one but her mother and her pastor's wife for eight months. She suspects this period could represent a time when Erika trained to become a Christian. Given what has been learned about individuals training to present as Christians and infiltrate conservative movements, Owens asks whether Erika was training to be able to impress people like Charlie by always having a Bible verse ready. Owens notes that Erika can't complete a sentence without making it somehow a Bible verse or holy, and there's something that registers as off about that to many people.

Owens wants to know who the pastor's wife is. The only person who saw Erika for eight months according to Erika's own dating of events. By going through Erika's old tweets via an account she has since locked down (accessed with help from a follower who shared login credentials), Owens and her team tried to identify the church and pastor. They believe a possible church could be City of Grace in Scottsdale, with Pastor Terry Crist.

City of Grace and Hillsong Connections

Pastor Terry Crist is mentioned on Erika's Twitter feed as early as 2011 with tweets like "Pastor Terry is awesome." She also tweeted about his wife Judith Crist: "I cherish your friendship and I am grateful for your love, Judith Crist. You are the epitome of a Proverbs." Other tweets include "I am totally obsessed with City of Grace" and references to attending with "my Tyler Massie" (a boyfriend, contradicting her claims of not dating before Charlie).

Coincidentally, Pastor Terry Crist is very close with Brian Houston, the Hillsong Church founder who infamously attempted to cover up his father's pedophilia. Brian Houston said of his father who was never charged: "I have no doubt now that my father was a serial pedophile and we will probably never know the extent of it." Pastor Terry Crist and his wife Pastor Judith Crist have been friends with the Houstons since 1994.

Ashley, Owens' researcher, explains that Pastor Terry Crist has a very interesting background and is very good friends with Brian Houston. Houston covered up his father's pedophilia for years, and his father never got charged. Brian Houston eventually resigned, and right afterwards, Pastor Terry Crist also resigned from the church he was leading, though he said it wasn't related. Additionally, Pastor Terry Crist and his wife were accused (word on the street, allegedly) of having their congregants throw up into bags to get rid of bad spirits.

Owens emphasizes she is not certain this is the pastor's wife Erika went into training with, but finds the connections interesting. She notes there are going to be psychiatrists and psychologists in Erika's life, and what people perceive as spiritual darkness sometimes comes from people purporting to be spiritually light. People who can't get out a sentence without saying "the Lord" could have something else going on, as was learned with the Hillsong scandal.

Continued Pageant Involvement

Despite Erika's claimed eight-month hiatus from public life to strip away the "plastic" pageant world, she confirms she competed for Miss USA Colorado 2009, placing third runner-up. This means during 2008, despite her claims of being a hermit, she was still involved in pageantry. In fact, she competed that year as well, continuing her pattern of competing every single year.

The Major Dating Lie Exposed

One of the most significant revelations Owens presents is Erika's lie about not dating anyone for five years before meeting Charlie Kirk. During an interview with Bari Weiss, Erika claimed: "When I lived out here [New York City], I was here for 5 years. I never dated here because I saw vicariously through my roommate how terrible it was... I was blessed with a Charlie, you have to be the type of woman that will attract a Charlie... I was not dating in New York City. He knew that in order for me to know that that was my man, he had to blanket Charlie as a job interview because if he came to me and said, 'Hey, let's go on a date to Bill's Burgers,' I'd be like, 'I am so sorry, thank you, but no, we're not doing this.' That was my mindset. I was not in that headspace. I just wasn't."

Owens finds this deeply suspicious and asks what the intended purpose and audience for this lie is. She emphasizes that no one would judge Erika for having a normal dating life in her twenties in New York City. The correct answer, Owens suggests, should have been: "I didn't go out to meet a boyfriend because I already had one and maybe he was living in DC or something. I had a boyfriend. I always had a boyfriend and they were in different cities."

The reality, according to Owens' research, is that from 2013 to 2018, the five years preceding her relationship with Charlie, Erika had multiple boyfriends. She rang in the new year with a boyfriend in 2018. There was not actually a single year that could be found when Erika Frantzve was single, the opposite of what she claims. Owens promises more details on this for the following week.

Pattern of Fraud and Financial Scandal

Owens emphasizes that fraud seems to surround Lori Frantzve from her parents to her grandparents to the person doing her documents to her very many businesses that nobody knows what they do. She can't seem to get away from it. Despite being very aware of who the Erpenbecks were in a case that included attempts of coordinated murder and kidnapping of children, Lori didn't seem scared and continued working with Rick Erpenbeck.

Owens notes this keeps happening around Lori. Money evaporates everywhere she goes, even when her daughter is just going to school. Tyler Bowyer probably faces similar patterns, having recently required a literal federal pardon from the President of the United States for fraud after being credibly accused of nine felonies.

Defending the Investigation

Owens addresses criticism, stating she is sickened by how dishonest people are being, claiming there's nothing to see and that Erika is just a grieving widow. She asserts that the people involved didn't even write their own speeches for Charlie's memorial, showing how little they cared about Charlie Kirk. Charlie was a means to an end for them.

She states she doesn't care what people say on the internet who are clearly being paid to say the same thing. If people find her investigation into whether those taking over Turning Point USA will be good stewards of alleged billions going forward to be the most demonic thing in all of this, they are "out of order." She compares them to an out-of-order vending machine.

Owens says Lori reminds her of Grandpa Joe from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, someone who pretended to be sick and bedridden until opportunity arose, then suddenly could dance and scheme. She states she never misreads vibes and gets those vibes from Lori.

In closing, Owens says her answer to "Who is Erika Kirk?" is "Lori's child." She believes Lori comes first, Lori has always come first, and Lori is exceedingly problematic. She understands Lori is sick but notes that someday George Soros will be sick too, and that doesn't mean people can't discuss things he's involved in. The question remains what went on with the alleged marriage between Lori and Kent, with no evidence of it occurring and apparent contradictions across 16 years of documents.

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