Hat tip to Booty Juice! From calcoastnews.com:
Timothy William Barnes, 37, pleaded guilty Monday to committing bank fraud. Barnes, a San Francisco resident, owned and operated Apex Properties Real Estate Brokerage in San Luis Obispo. Barnes is accused of orchestrating a property-flipping scheme in San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Pismo Beach and other Central Coast cities that netted him more than $500,000 in profits between January 2010 and September 2012.
Barnes understated the value of homes in documents he submitted to banks that he was asking to approve short sales. He then sold the houses at higher prices. Often Barnes concealed higher offers he had already received and simultaneously negotiated the short sale and resale of the houses.
Short sales can occur when the value of a property drops below the amount of money owed on the mortgage. In that instance, a bank can agree to a short sale, in which it accepts less than the total owed on the loan.
The FBI and the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Inspector General investigated the Barnes’s property-flipping scheme. FBI agents raided his downtown San Luis Obispo office in September 2012.
Barnes is scheduled for sentencing on June 16. He faces a maximum of 30 years in federal prison.
http://calcoastnews.com/2014/03/former-slo-broker-charged-federal-bank-fraud/
good to see one finally go to the slammer. I wonder what the statute of limitations is on this type of crime?
“No person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for a violation of, or a conspiracy to violate – (1) Section 215, 656, 657, 1005, 1006, 1007, 1014, 1033, or 1344; (2) Section 1341 or 1343 [mail and wire fraud], if the offense affects a financial institution; or (3) Section 1963 [(RICO) racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations], to the extent that the racketeering activity involves a violation of Section 1344 [bank fraud] – unless the indictment is returned or the information is filed within 10 years after the commission of the offense,” 18 U.S.C. 3293.
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31253.pdf
There are a couple of listing agents in san diego… that Im waiting to submit to the fbi…all short sales. We overbid the asking price by 20% only to see the homes close at the original offer. Our offer was not even looked at…and chance would have it the agent even double ended the deal stealing money from the banks and leaving legitimate higher offers in the trash.
There is a guy in the DA’s office named Robinson who is pursuing short-sale fraud:
http://www.sdcda.org/preventing/real-estate-fraud/index.html
meanwhile, the Orange Man Mozillo is laughing all the way to the bank.
This dude is small time. 500k in illicit profits….500k….seriously!?!? The FBI doesn’t have bigger fish to fry?
sure they have bigger fish to fry, but the little ones are easier to catch. I would imagine there are a handful of agents and their friendly principals around these parts that aren’t sleeping as soundly as they once did.