When police responded to reports of a squatter at a San Francisco mansion over the weekend, they didn’t expect to catch an alleged art thief believed to have stolen and sold paintings valued at more than $300,000.
While squatting in the home, Jeremiah Kaylor, 39, took 11 paintings from the walls and sold them through social media and pawn shops, said Officer Carlos Manfredi, a spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department. Nine of the 11 paintings have been recovered.
Kaylor was charged with trespassing and 10 counts of burglary, Manfredi said.
The initial call about a possible squatter at the home on the 3800 block of Washington Street came Saturday just before 11 p.m. When police made contact with Kaylor, he produced documents allegedly showing he was going to be the proprietary owner of the home, police said.
“This individual produced some type of paperwork that looked like it was official, saying he had a right to stay there,” Manfredi said. “It is a little sophisticated … not typical for squatters to do.”
When police were unable to reach the homeowner and sales agent, they left. But the next day, the sales agent called police and said no one should be inside.
Kaylor may have been squatting there for as long as two months, Manfredi said.
There’s a consumer alert about an apparent scam targeting families in Rhode Island after a local couple lost $13,000.
Experts say this scheme is very sophisticated, and anyone who’s in the market for a new home needs to be on alert.
It’s a simple idea: pose as a real estate agent online and target home buyers. But in reality, it is anything but simple.
“The goal is to hack into the real estate agent’s email account,” said Connor Dowd, a broker with Keller Williams Realty of Newport. “Once they’re in, they try to learn about any real estate transactions that are currently going.”
There have been 116 new listings of NSDCC houses this year. As expected, 61 of those were on the market last year (53%), and that’s not counting the sellers who listed with a different company.
Why are listing agents allowed to intentionally deceive the consumer? You’ll have to ask the district attorney about that one, because there is nobody within the industry that is doing anything to stop it. Get Good Help!!
Click on the link below for the complete NSDCC active-inventory data:
Because California has been exempted by the IRS from their debt-tax on short sales, we should still see more of them in the coming months and years. They tend to be shady – here’s how a case in Nevada turned out:
Harcourts was one of the Northern Nevada companies identified by a Reno Gazette-Journal investigation last year for engaging in quick-listed, dual agency short sales. The deals allow the same agents or firms to earn multiple commissions on the same property by representing both the buyer and the seller — at times “triple dipping” and earning a third or even fourth commission by being involved in the property’s resale as well.
The practice also allows a pre-arranged buyer or investor to purchase the property far below fair value by blocking other offers for the property, which go pending with an approved offer the moment they are listed on the market. This allows an investor to resell the property just a few weeks or months later at huge profit, with some examples posting more than $100,000 in appreciation during the resale.
“What we pursued was gross negligence based on fiduciary duty … to represent the interests of all parties involved,” said Jonathan “JD” Decker, Nevada Real Estate Division administrator. “In this case, all parties include the seller, buyer and the mortgage lender.”
According to the defense, the primary interest of the seller is to sell a property quickly to avoid a harder hit on their credit rating from foreclosure. Since the seller is losing the property, it does not matter if the house is sold at a lower price to a prearranged buyer. By failing to get the best offer, however, Decker’s team said that the deals did not fairly serve the interests of the mortgage lender.
During the hearing on Wednesday, the defense countered that courts have ruled that the lender and homeowner are adversarial so the broker cannot represent both their interests. Instead, banks need to do their own due diligence to ensure a distressed property is being sold for the best price possible.
“You could call what was going on potentially distasteful,” Decker said. “But (the commission decided) that it did not come down to being illegal or in violation of statute.”
The informant is getting used to being on national TV, and is a little nervous here. As a result, the significance is understated – JPMorgan Chase defrauded their investors, and then the Department of Justice let them off the hook:
One mortgage in particular that sticks out in Fleischmann’s mind involved a manicurist who claimed to have an annual income of $117,000. Fleischmann figured that even working seven days a week, this woman would have needed to work 488 days a year to make that much. “And that’s with no overhead,” Fleischmann says. “It wasn’t possible.”
Here’s a fascinating story about the prosecution of people who defaulted on liar loans they obtained in 2006.
The U.S. Attorney accused of them of mortgage fraud, and the defense attorneys – some appointed by the state – made the case that banking executives intended to make fraudulent loans.
Hat tip to W.C. Varones for sending in this article on Crisp and Cole, the two real estate agents in Bakersfield who were found guilty of defrauding banks out of nearly $30 million:
FRESNO — For their roles in a mortgage fraud case that rocked Bakersfield, David Crisp was sentenced Monday to 17 1/2 years in prison while his wife, Jennifer, received what the federal judge in the case called “the break of a lifetime”: five years probation.
David, 34, was immediately remanded to custody to begin serving what amounts to the same sentence given in February to his former business partner, Carl Cole, who like Crisp had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail, wire and bank fraud. Both former principals of Crisp & Cole Real Estate and Tower Lending were ordered to pay restitution of more than $28 million.
In a news release, federal prosecutors said David had finally “crashed hard” after flaunting his “ill-gotten wealth” and going around in exotic cars, Armani suits and a private jet.
“David Crisp lived in the fast lane, steering a real estate company that was all image and no substance,” U.S. Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner wrote.
As the housing bubble burst, Crisp & Cole’s projects fell through, home defaults mounted and lawsuits were filed. By September 2007 the IRS had slapped David and Jennifer Crisp with a $111,170 lien in back taxes and the FBI began investigating. Within days, more than 75 federal agents swarmed over 13 properties related to the former Crisp & Cole company.
In his plea agreement, David Crisp admitted that he and his co-conspirators caused losses of at least $29.8 million to defrauded lenders.
The Crisps’ guilty pleas brought to 14 the number of defendants who have done so in the case.
As for the success he appeared to achieve as a young real estate mogul, Crisp told the judge, “It got to my head, your honor.”
His Fresno lawyer, Eric Kersten, portrayed Crisp as an inexperienced “kid” caught up in a booming market. Kersten tried to shift some of the blame to Cole and the bankers anxious to give out loans during the real estate boom.
“Everybody was making money. It was like the wild West,” Kersten said.
Real estate and title agencies are being warned about a new fraud scheme in which email bandits target consumers who are in the process of purchasing a home.
