March 23rd, 2012 at 9:20am
Gloria Becerra, of Oxnard, and Hector Menendez, of Los Angeles, have been charged with four counts of grand theft, 11 counts of foreclosure consultant fraud and one count of attempted grand theft for allegedly promising to save a woman’s home from foreclosure.
Ventura County prosecutor Dominic Kardum charges that Becerra and Menendez ran a phony foreclosure rescue / mortgage rescue program. The business names they used were Sunset Beach Management, Financial Wellness for Homeowners LA and California Sky Premiers.
As is typical with phony foreclosure rescue “services,” the victim indeed received none. The defendants, however, if convicted, could receive up to 12 years in prison.
If you believe you are a victim of Becerra and Menendez, please call the Ventura County District Attorney’s Real Estate Fraud Unit at 805-662-1750.
Read the original article in the Ventura County Star.
March 23rd, 2012 at 9:11am
The two owners of M & R Contemporary Solutions Inc., a so-called foreclosure consulting firm in the city of Campbell, have entered please.
Rene Alvarez and Mariano Ortega pled guilty and no contest respectively in Santa Clara Superior Court. According to Santa Clara Deputy District Attorney Mike Fitzsimmons “This was one of the largest, if not largest real estate fraud cases in the county’s history.”
The scheme targeted 400 primarily Latino homeowners and deprived them of nearly $2 million. This was a typical loan modification fraud in which homeowners in foreclosure were promised assistance in exchange for paying upfront fees of $2,000-$3,000.
Read the original article in the Campbell Patch.
March 23rd, 2012 at 9:04am
A Gonzalez-area woman who admitted operating a Ponzi scheme has been sentenced to three years in prison, but the sentence was stayed by the judge if she completes restitution.
Maria Ponce was sentenced by Judge Adrienne Grover but the judge’s priority is to seek repayment of the stolen funds for the victims, mostly Latinos.
Ponce admitted that her scheme caused $145,000 in losses from 57 people who were in foreclosure. Many of the victims testified to the court as to the devastation caused by Ponce’s loan modification scam, which required upfront fees.
Prosecutors contended that Maria Ponce was very sophisticated and knew exactly what she was doing when she solicited her victims.
Read the original article in the Contra Costa Times.
September 2nd, 2011 at 8:13am
Defaulting homeowners who thought they were out of options thought Stephen Easterly and Emanuel Percival were the answer to their dreams. Easterly, who was employed by Fidelity Group Realty in Fontana, approached the homeowners in church and told them the banks had to prove they hadn’t done anything fraudulent with respect to the loans. He even paid up their back property taxes and other debts.
But Easterly and Percival were also charging the homeowners for their time. Charging upfront fees to help with loan modification or other mortgage assistance is illegal in California. They also gave the homeowners the impression that the banks had written down the principal, which would lower the homeowners’ monthly payments.
According to Lance Cantos lf San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, both Easterly and Percival are being held on bails of $1 million bail and $500,000 respectively.
Read the original article in KABC-TV Los Angeles.
August 18th, 2011 at 7:37pm
California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced today that her office has filed suit against three law firms, four attorneys and 14 businesses that had preyed on distressed borrowers trying to save their homes.
Now that California has cracked down on loan modification fraud by forbidding firms from charging upfront fees in exchange for helping borrowers, that type of real estate fraud is fading. According to Harris, the workaround scam is to get the victims to part with up to $10,000 in order to participate in “mass joinder” lawsuits against the banks.
Among the defendants are attorney Philip Kramer and his Calabasas-based law firm Kramer and Kaslow; Encino attorney Christopher Van Son; Paul Peterson and Costa Mesa based Mesa Law Group Corp; and Mitchell Stein and his law firm Mitchell J. Stein & Associates, based in Agoura Hills.
Kramer’s firm and has been placed into receivership. In addition, the California DOJ has seized the practices of the following non-attorney defendants:
Attorneys Processing Center, LLC; Data Management, LLC; Gary DiGirolamo; Bill Stephenson; Mitigation Professionals, LLC; Glen Reneau; Pate Marier & Associates, Inc.; James Pate; Ryan Marier; Home Retention Division; Michael Tapia; Lewis Marketing Corp.; Clarence Butt; and Thomas Phanco.
This is the first action taken by the Attorney General’s Mortgage Fraud Task Force to protect consumers.
Since this network of attorneys and businesses is alleged to have operated nationwide, other states have reports and investigations of their activities. Read this report by the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions. The defendants have also been discussed in RipoffReport.com.
Read more about this in the California Attorney General’s press release and Reuters.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:47pm
The latest real estate fraud that authorities are seeing are mortgage elimination scams.
Glenn Gulley, an investigator with the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office, says that con artists are targeting Latinos whose homes are in foreclosure. The victims pay a processing fee of $1,000 to $3,000 and are told they can get a new mortgage for 25% of what their current mortgage is. The criminals file a new conveyance, claiming that the loan has been paid off. Of course, the legal lender continues with its foreclosure proceedings and the borrower loses his or her home along with the fees.
Kurt F. Johnson and Dale Scott Heineman ran their mortgage elimination scams through the Dorean Group and were sentenced three years ago to prison terms of 25 years and 21 years for stealing from 3,500 victims across 35 states.
Last month, a federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Henrik and Hamlet Sardariani on charges they filed fraudulent reconveyances. If convicted, the brothers coud receive sentences of 115 years in prison.
Read the full article in the Modesto Bee.
