Tom Petters, then and now

Born: Thomas J. Petters, July 11, 1957

Hometown: St. Cloud

Education: 1975 graduate of Cathedral High School, St. Cloud

Work Experience

1973: Opens Ear Electronics to sell stereo equipment from a rented office in downtown St. Cloud. A junior in high school, he advertises through fliers on cars in local high schools and colleges.

1980s: Joins Schaak Electronics in St. Cloud; eventually leaves to run a regional consumer electronics chain in Colorado. Buys five stores in Colorado and Kansas when the firm goes bankrupt.

1988: Starts Amicus Trading Group, which later becomes the Petters Co., to buy and resell overstock, discontinued and damaged retailer inventory.

1999: Forms RedtagBiz.com Inc., an Internet wholesaler, which becomes Redtag Inc., in 2000.

2000: Petters and Ted Deikel start BoomBuy, an Internet company. The store closes in 2003.

2002: Petters and Deikel buy Fingerhut. Petters then becomes a major investor in the firm.

2003: Petters Group Worldwide buys uBid Inc. Petters sells majority ownership in 2005 when uBid goes public.

2004: Petters' son, John T. Petters, is stabbed to death in Italy in March while on a study-abroad trip from Ohio University at Miami. Tom Petters creates a nonprofit foundation named after his son to fund international scholarship.

2006: Buys 50 percent of Sun Country Airlines with Whitebox Advisors, a Twin Cities investment firm. Petters increases his stake in Sun Country to 80 percent over the next year.

Aug. 14, 2008: Acorn Capital Group, Greenwich, Conn., files a federal lawsuit in New York accusing Petters of defaulting on $273 million in loans.

Sept. 8, 2008: Deanna Coleman, 42, vice president of operations for Petters Co. Inc., approaches the government and alleges that Petters has been running a massive investor fraud scheme since about 1995.