The founder of a Colorado nonprofit said in a lawsuit that the Stanford Financial Group's alleged $8 billion fraud has jeopardized his efforts to help the poor in Mexico and Central America.

Johan Dahler, who leads the Foundation for the Healthy Development of Healthy Teeth in a Healthy Body, claimed that the company and its chairman, Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford, misled investors who purchased supposedly safe, high-interest certificates of deposit.

Stanford Financial "knowingly and recklessly made false and material misrepresentations," the lawsuit stated.

The group, which funds medical, dental and nutritional programs and helps thousands of people and hundreds of orphanages, had investments valued at more than $750,000 in three different CDs, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in a state court in Texas.

Dahler, a retired oral surgeon who lives in Canon City, said he demanded the money back, informing Stanford Financial that many people would not get the medical and dental help they need and that orphanages would not receive food, but that the company refused.

Dahler believed that the investments would "offer a means of safely increasing" the foundation's income and allow the group to expand its work.

Dahler said by phone that he began investing with Stanford Financial 13 years ago after learning of the firm through an acquaintance in Mexico and entrusted all of the foundation's money to the company.

"That was going to last forever," said Dahler, who began his work in the early 1970s and started the foundation in 1996.

Now he doesn't know what he will get back.

Dahler said he hopes to recover at least some of the money to continue with the project, but he is unsure whether he can carry on.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit Tuesday against Stanford and three of his companies, claiming they defrauded investors by promoting improbable, if not impossible, returns. No criminal charges have been filed against Stanford, located Thursday by the FBI near Fredericksburg, Va.

One entity, Stanford Group Co., set up shop in Colorado more than a decade ago and has space in the Wells Fargo Center at 1700 Lincoln St. The office closed this week after the government's charges.

patonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2544