Print edition: 
As a successful driver on the international sports car circuit, Scott Tucker is used to checking his rear-view mirror.
But for the last seven years, Tucker, of Leawood, also has been fighting to stay ahead of Colorado authorities who want to take a deep look at his finances and business affairs.
The case involves payday loans, poor borrowers and American Indian tribes, according to court records.
The Colorado authorities, including the state's attorney general and its top credit regulator, have taken the fight to a Kansas court, which they hope will finally grant them access to some of the businessman's records.
Colorado authorities declined to comment on any aspect of their investigation of Tucker and businesses they contend he controls. They have not have charged Tucker with any crime.
Colorado authorities have spent most of a decade trying to subpoena business records only to meet repeated denials by the courts, a lawyer for Tucker noted. He added that he hopes an upcoming ruling from the Kansas Court of Appeals will expose years of what he calls "harassment" of his client.
According to court records, Colorado authorities are trying to determine whether Tucker controls a maze of shell companies that purportedly have sold consumers illegal high-interest payday loans over the Internet.
It is unclear how the businesses under investigation work.
But payday loan companies operate all over the United States. In general, such businesses offer short-term loans that borrowers expect to repay out of their next paychecks. If the borrowers miss those payments, some lenders add fees and interest that can dwarf the original loan amount.
The Federal Trade Commission warned in 2008 that some lenders require direct access to a borrower's checking account and charge annual interest rates of almost 400 percent — and sometimes more.
For example, if a borrower agreed to pay a 15 percent finance charge on a two-week loan of $100 but couldn't repay the debt for a year, the finance charge would grow to $390, almost four times the original principal amount.
Allegations
In court paperwork, Colorado officials have alleged that Tucker's companies made loans without being properly licensed, levied excessive finance charges, failed to disclose all of the loan terms to borrowers and improperly renewed loans.
Tucker allegedly has frustrated Colorado officials by sheltering his Internet payday loan businesses with Indian tribes, according to a joint news investigation released last month by David Heath of the Center for Public Integrity and Armen Keteyian of CBS News.
"Under federal law, tribes are equal to states as sovereign powers," Heath wrote. "So they are immune from being sued in state court."
Tucker's lawyer, Tim Muir, said last week that Tucker is constrained by a confidentiality agreement from discussing tribal matters, but he said his client is merely an employee of the Indian nations, which actually own the payday loan businesses.
"He does not own these companies," Muir said. "There are documents that have been produced to the Colorado attorney general's office that detail Mr. Tucker's relationship to the tribal online lending businesses. Very shortly ... I believe that relationship will be clarified."
Muir said the tribal online lending businesses are legal, are fully regulated by tribal law and comply with all federal law.
Past legal issues
Tucker is a Johnson County businessman who has garnered international recognition for his quick rise in sports-car racing, including appearances at the last two 24-hour races in Le Mans, France.
He describes himself as a private equity investor.
As a 29-year-old in 1991, he pleaded guilty in Kansas federal court in two fraud cases and was sentenced to 12 months in prison.
His most pressing legal issue now is before a Kansas court. Should it rule against Tucker and a now-dissolved firm that he owned, Colorado authorities could get their first in-depth look at his businesses.
According to court records, authorities began investigating in 2004 two payday loan operations purportedly tied to Tucker.
Colorado authorities asked a Denver District Court in 2005 to enforce subpoenas for records. That same year, two American Indian tribes — one each from Oklahoma and Nebraska — stepped forward to say that they were the lenders actually making the payday loans. The tribes' involvement effectively shielded the companies from state scrutiny.
As lawyers fought that battle, the Colorado attorney general opened a second legal front in Olathe in 2008 by asking a state judge to enforce a subpoena demanding records from Tucker's dissolved company, CLK Management.
In Olathe court filings, the Colorado attorney general alleged that CLK controlled payday loan operations.
"The lenders were engaged in making illegal, usurious and unlicensed payday loans over the Internet," a filing alleged.
Regulators seek files
Colorado regulators said they were seeking documents from CLK to understand the relationships between the payday loan companies, Tucker's various firms and the tribes, and to clarify who owns, controls and operates all of them.
In fighting the subpoena, CLK's lawyers focused on technical legal questions rather than the merits of payday loan issues.
They also reminded the Johnson County court that a Denver judge had sanctioned a Colorado assistant attorney general and harshly criticized the state for how it had conducted its investigation.
A Johnson County judge in September 2010 sided with CLK's lawyers, ruling that the state of Colorado hadn't followed proper procedure to notify the company of its subpoena. The decision sent the issue to the Kansas Court of Appeals in Topeka for another round of legal wrangling.
Attorneys general from 22 states, including Kansas, have joined Colorado to ask the court to enforce the subpoena in Johnson County.
Without it, lawyers argued, Kansas could become a sanctuary for financial predators that break the laws in other states but are safe from scrutiny at home, where the potentially incriminating records are stored.
"Kansas is not, and should not be permitted to be, a haven for Internet operations in violation of consumer protection laws," a Colorado court filing argued.
Muir responded that Tucker merely was standing up against a bully.
"There are few people across the country with the fortitude and the resources to take on the government," Muir said. "My client does (have them)."
