When he died of prostate cancer at 57 in 1998, the former local rock 'n' roll band leader in the 1950s and 1960s owed $86 million but had only $2.8 million that creditors could trace, according to state Probate Court documents.

After a futile four-year global search for more of Givens' alleged hidden assets, the judge this week ruled creditors can go no further with their legal parries. Their last find was $1.7 million deposited by Givens in a Bank of Scotland account on the Isle of Guernsey, off the coast of England, court documents show.

The Longwood, FL promoter once owned millions in Orlando area commercial real estate. Among the properties were Maitland Commons, Wekiva Corners Shopping Center, Curry Vista Plaza and the Westmonte Office Building in Altamonte Springs, FL.

Givens founded the Charles J. Givens Organization in 1975 and resigned in 1995. The company changed its name to International Administrative Services but in 1996 the firm filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

International Administrative Services is still selling financial advice today to an estimated 60,000 members globally but the Givens family is no longer associated with the business, according to court filings.

At his peak, Givens was pitching his business hard on paid television infomercials, in newspaper advertisements and at profitable seminars around the country. He appeared regularly on nationally televised talk shows such as Oprah, Today and Larry King Live. One of his several published books, Wealth Without Risk, was once on the New York Times' best-selling list for weeks.

According to court records, he would sell financial packages at the seminars that typically were comprised of $400 in videotapes and text; $400 for the right call his company for advice; and $2,000 for a 10-day course on how to find and sell distressed real estate profitably.

The real estate advice triggered a slew of lawsuits from seminar attendees disappointed with Givens' instructions on how to get rich quick. In a 1996 class action suit brought by 29,000 plaintiffs, a San Diego Superior Court jury found Givens guilty of fraud and ordered him to pay $14.1 million, an award that wasn't reversed in later appeals. Three years earlier, an Iowa jury found Givens guilty of similar charges.

"He advised people to think big, buy big and spend big," an Orlando real estate lawyer intimate with the former Givens organization but not associated with any of the lawsuits tells GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity. "Not bad advice really, so long as you can do it legally."