California Real Estate Fraud Report

This report spotlights real estate professionals and businesses lacking the ethics and conscience to treat their fellow humans in a fair, honest and upstanding manner. It is a clearinghouse for real estate fraud, mortgage fraud, loan fraud, appraisal fraud and elder financial fraud occurring in California, especially Los Angeles and Southern California. - Monique Bryher

Archive for the 'Forged Documents' Category

California Attorney General Brown Arrests Mortgage Brokers

September 11th, 2009 at 10:29am

This is a news story, that if proven true in the courts, sets a new milestone in hubris and anti-social behavior by three licensed real estate professionals towards the public. When you read what has been alleged, perhaps you will wonder as I do how these individuals thought they could commit the alleged crimes without being detected.

Yesterday, California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown announced that he has arrested several employees of ALG, Inc., a Los Angeles-based mortgage company. Michael McConville, 39, Garrett Holdridge, 23, and Alan Ruiz, 28, are all being held on $2 million bail each. McConville is a sales manager for ALG, Inc., while Holdridge and Ruiz are loan officers for ALG. The three face a total of 44 charges for defrauding more than 70 borrowers.

Attorney General Brown’s office is alleging that McConville, Holdridge and Ruiz ran a loan modification scam by falsely promising distressed homeowners that they would help them refinance their loans with lower interest rates and other financial terms including - get this - even some cash out. It is alleged that McConville and his associates presented the homeowners with paperwork using the terms they had promised but which had never been approved by the lenders. After the borrowers signed the closing paperwork, the pages with the terms  were replaced with pages bearing the actual terms with which the lenders had agreed. The signatures of the victims were forged on the replacement documents by the defendants.

Said Attorney General Brown, “This was not some clerical error but a criminal conspiracy to steal nearly a million dollars from borrowers.”

The defendants have been charged with the following crimes:

1. 28 counts of grand theft (Penal Code Section 487, Subdivision (a))
2. 14 counts of forgery (Penal Code Section 470, Subdividion (d))
3. 1 count of elder abuse (Penal Code 182, Subdivision (d))
4. 1 count of conspiracy to commit grand theft (Penal Code Section 182, Subdivision (a)(1))
5. 3 special allegations of aggravated white-collar crime in excess of $500,000 (Penal Code Section 186.11,
Subdivision (a)(2))
6. Taking in excess of $3,200,000 (Penal Code Section 12022.6, Subdivision (a)(4) and (b)).

Read the Full Press Release by the Office of the California State Attorney General.

This article is also published on Examiner.com by the L.A. Fraud Examiner.

Posted in Consumer Fraud, Elder Financial Fraud, Forged Documents, Loan Fraud, Mortgage Fraud, loan modification fraud, loan modification scams, loan modifications by: Monique Bryher

© Copyright 2007-2008 Monique Bryher

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The information and notices contained on The California Real Estate Fraud Report are intended to summarize recent developments in real estate fraud, mortgage fraud and appraisal fraud occurring in Los Angeles and California. The posts on this site are presented as general research and information and are expressly not intended, and should not be regarded, as legal advice. Much of the information on this site concerns allegations made in civil lawsuits and in criminal indictments. All persons are presumed innocent until convicted of a crime. Readers who have particular questions about real estate fraud, mortgage fraud and appraisal fraud matters or who believe they require legal counsel should seek the advice of an attorney.