February 2nd, 2012 at 10:21am
Robinson Dinh Nguyen, formerly a real estate agent with the defunct and disgraced Crisp & Cole Associates, has been sentenced to prison for 21 months and ordered to pay $433,000 in restitution. The California Department of Real Estate (DRE) revoked his license in 2008.
In his guilty plea, Nguyen, 31, admitted that he had conspired with others to submit fraudulent loan documentation and used straw buyers in order to obtain mortgage loans from financial institutions (mortgage fraud, loan fraud). Many were 100% loans and others were refis, the purpose of which was to skim equity and then let the homes fall into foreclosure. The lenders, of course, lost millions.
The defendants who have already pleaded guilty are Kevin Sluga, Crisp & Cole’s CPA; Jerald Teixeira and Christopher Stovall, former loan officers for Tower Lending; Megan Balod; and Leslie Sluga. Those defendants still awaiting trial are David Marshall Crisp, Carlyle Lee Cole, Julie Dianne Farmer, Sneha Ramesh Mohammadi, Jayson Peter Costa, Jeriel Salinas, Michael Angelo Munoz, Jennifer Anne Crisp, and Caleb Lee Cole.
Read the original article in the Central Valley Business Times.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:04am
An 89-year old woman who paid off her home of 40 years in the late 1990s is probably going to lose it to foreclosure (mortgage fraud, elder financial abuse), thanks to a fraud allegedly involving an ex-LAPD officer and a self-annoited Bishop.
Vistula David was conned by Leroy Dowd, 74, a so-called charismatic leader of a South Los Angeles church named the Triumph Church of God. Not only did the elderly woman give Dowd money, she unwittingly signed over the deed to her house (title fraud, real estate fraud). Keta Davis, Vistula’s daughter, says her mother did not know what she was signing.
Dowd took out three loans against the property (all of which I have independently confirmed). To their credit, Wells Fargo and Bank of America cancelled the loans they held after their investigations determined the loans were fraudulent (loan fraud, mortgage fraud). IndyMac, however, is refusing to do so and proceeding with foreclosure, saying that they are merely servicing the loan for the investor.
Claremont Detective David DeMetz, who knows Dowd from another case, calls him “a smooth con artist.” Other detectives believe Dowd was in cahoots with former LAPD officer Darcey Greenfield, who operated a real estate business and whose business Greenfield and McCall took title to Mrs. Graham’s home at one point.
Greenfield is no longer with the LAPD, surrendered her real estate license in October 2011 and has been charged with ten felony counts, all related to real estate fraud, according to San Bernardino deputy district attorney Vance Welch.
Read the original article in NBC Los Angeles.
January 27th, 2012 at 9:43am
James Delbert McConville, the subject of many posts in the California Real Estate Fraud Report, has pleaded guilty in Oakland federal court to money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud.
McConville was accused by prosecutors of setting up an elaborate network including a Citibank employee, an escrow officer, a Realtor and a notary public. He also convinced dozens of people to act as straw buyers, using their good credit and a bribe of $10,000 to encourage their participation.
The properties McConville purchased were located all across California. San Diego appraiser Todd Lackner referred to the schemes as “sterotypic mortgage fraud.”
Although he has promised to pay restitution, McConville’s attorney, Sara Rief, claims her client is broke. This is most likely due to the large amount of money his crimes afforded him to spend on himself.
Read the original article in KGTV San Diego.
January 20th, 2012 at 8:31am
Raymond Foakes, 48, once president of the Sonoma Hells Angels, is going to spend up to five years and 10 months in prison for his participation in a mortgage fraud scheme.
Foakes signed his name to what he knew were fraudulent loan documents so that he could purchase a home that was used as a marijuana grow house. He was apparently one of at least eight persons recruited by loan officer Jacob Moynihan to act as straw buyers during 2006 and 2007. Moynihan and his father Gerald Moynihan are two of the other defendants.
In addition to his prison sentence, Foakes must be pay restitution and his contact with other Hells Angels members will be limited when he gets out of prison.
Read the original article in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
January 12th, 2012 at 10:31pm
A man living with his family in what was thought to be a vacant home in Vacaville might turn out to be a victim of a real estate swindle.
Johnnie Carabajal claims he has given almost $48,000 in cash to a real estate agent named Alonzo Brown III toward the purchase of the home. Carbajal thought Brown was forwarding the payments to Wells Fargo, which was unaware Carbajal was trying to buy the property and served him with a foreclosure notice.
Brown is under indictment for mortgage fraud for allegedly taking out loans in the names of his friends, without their knowledge or consent, in order to purchase houses.
Read the original article in FoxNews.com
January 12th, 2012 at 12:15pm
In the ongoing investigation into a criminal conspiracy to defraud banks, U.S. Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced indictments of four more defendants by a federal grand jury.
Yevgeniy Charikov, 40, of West Sacramento; Vitaliy Tuzman, 40, of Citrus Heights; Nadia Talybov, 30, of Antelope; and Juliet Romanishin, 30, of West Sacramento have been charged with mail fraud. Charikov, a real estate agent, and Tuzman, one of the straw buyers, have also been charged with money laundering.
These are the allegations: Charikov assisted in purchasing the homes, then reselling them to straw buyers at inflated prices. The straw buyers’ income was inflated on loan applications and they falsely stated the homes were to be their primary residences (loan fraud, mortgage fraud). Romanishin, the loan officer and also the wife of Charikov, approved the loans. Talybov was one of the straw buyers. All the properties were allowed to go into default and foreclosure after the defendants distributed the proceeds among themselves.
Read the original article in Mortgage Daily.
January 12th, 2012 at 11:59am
Keith Wilson, 55, of Stockton has been arrested and charged with securities fraud, money laundering, grand theft and elder abuse.
The 22-month long investigation by police into his businesses Tribeca Properties, LLC, and Lone Cedar Corporation led authorities to believe Wilson defraud seven people in the Bay Area out of over $300,000. The real estate fraud scheme was unraveled when the purported victims found out that Wilson had not purchased the foreclosed properties he had claimed to have bought.
Read the original article in the San Francisco Appeal.
January 12th, 2012 at 10:33am
Realtors® in the community of Chula Vista are speaking up about a firm that they allege is illegally renting out listed homes and making a lot of money doing so.
The firm, called “Prudent Constituents Association,” is allegedly filing fradulent quitclaims in San Diego County, then taking possession of homes that legitimately belong to others. Realtor® Steve Lemack says “They’ll take off the lockboxes that are on [the homes], take all the signs down, they change the locks and they put up their own signs.” He says further that PCA is charging renters $2,000 per month and that they control 30 properties or more.
The Prudent Constituents Association is purportedly a non-profit formed by Derrick and Diane Brown after their own home was foreclosed. Diane Brown, who also goes by the name Harmony stated “All these homes where people are being evicted by the lenders are wrongful evictions.”
Neither the Chula Vista Police Department nor the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, both of which were contacted by real estate agents, would acknowledge they are investigating PCA.
A note to prospective renters: I could not find any registration of the PCA as a non-profit, nor do they have a prominent (if any) website. This should be a hint that you might be dealing with an organization that is not legitimate and that you should investigate them further.
Read the original article in San Diego’s 10News.
January 12th, 2012 at 9:53am
Barry Winnett, 49, the man who operated Countour Escrow Services for co-conspirator Royce Newcomb, has been sentenced to prison for three years and two months.
Winnett, who is unlicensed and therefore ran an illegal escrow company (escrow fraud), was convicted of wire fraud for his role in Newcomb’s Ponzi scheme. Newcomb solicited money from investors to purchase foreclosed homes but in reality laundered the money through Contour Escrow Services and returned portions of it to earlier investors (real estate fraud). The sum lost to the 22 investors was nearly $3 million.
Newcomb began serving a five year two month sentence in fall 2011.
You can find earlier posts about Royce Newcomb and Barry Winnett by searching this blog.
Read the original article in the Roseville Press Tribune.
January 6th, 2012 at 8:49am
An unemployed real estate agent in Clayton has been one of the first bad guys to get caught by a new computer system in Contra Costa County designed to catch those who forge grant deeds to properties (title fraud).
Walter Roberts, 63, forged the signatures to a grant deed to his elderly parents’ home (elder financial abuse, elder financial fraud). In just two weeks, the newly-implemented computer system in Contra Costa County mailed a notification, which Roberts’ five siblings read, causing them to contact authorities. As a result, the 92- and 85-year old parents still own their property.
Ken McCormick, the deputy DA who heads the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Real Estate Fraud Unit was quoted as saying, ”Quite frankly, we would never have caught (the suspect) under the old system.”
Read the original article in the San Jose Mercury News.
