For Trevor Milton’s business partners, warning signs emerged years before Nikola downfall

“I’m not going to sit there and whine and say Trevor ruined my life. Did he ruin a section of my life? Yeah,” Pilz said. “But did I have my family through all that? Yeah. Did it suck, did it hurt, was I mad? Yeah.”

“The books were not what they said they were,” Pilz added.

Looking back on the deal today, Pilz wishes he’d bought a different company. Pilz said he faced two home foreclosures after the business didn’t live up to projected financial returns. CNN Business verified the foreclosures through public records.

Pilz said he lost the $300,000 down payment he invested after buying a company from the man later known for founding and then resigning from, Nikola Motors, the electric truck manufacturer.

Pilz said he took every dollar from his 401k and savings account to buy St. George Security and Alarms, an alarm system dealership, in St. George, Utah.

Milton was 22 years old when he registered the company in 2004, according to Utah public records. It would be the first of five…