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| Mortgage Fraud Ringleader Found Scheme Participants at ChurchWitnesses recount alleged fraud scheme in Maurice Bates trial May 29, 2012 By CHRIS OLWELL The News Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
| PANAMA CITY, Fla. -- Angy Tennor was 22, making about $7 an hour working at Blockbuster and living with her parents in Miami in 2005 when her boyfriend came to her with an offer to make some money. A group of investors from her boyfriend's church wanted to buy a home in her name. She wouldn't have to make any payments and her credit score would increase. And there was one more thing. "He told me I would get paid," she testified last week during the second day of a federal fraud trial. Her mother urged her not to do it, so she called the man representing the investors, Maurice Bates, and told him she was not interested. But Bates convinced her she had nothing to worry about, and then he asked her how much she wanted to get paid. She recalled him asking whether $30,000 was enough. Tennor gave Bates the information for the loan application and collected $25,000, paid to her in three separate checks so not to arouse suspicion. It wasn't long before the bank started calling her to ask why the payments on the Panama City Beach home weren't being made. Tennor called Bates, who said he would take care of it. Then he stopped returning her calls. The bank foreclosed on the house, she said. Tennor, now 29, still lives with her parents, and Bates is on trial for conspiracy to commit wire fraud with a possible 20-year prison sentence hanging over him. His four alleged co-conspirators already have pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors in the hope of getting reduced sentences. They are accused of skimming equity of nine area properties by obtaining multiple loans for more than the value of the properties. The sellers received one price while the buyers took out loans for more money, which they split amongst themselves, prosecutors allege. The group allegedly skimmed more than $1 million off more than $8.7 million in loans. The trial is expected to last until at least Thursday. One of the alleged co-conspirators is Jill Newman, a real estate lawyer with a troubled past, who testified Tuesday about her role falsifying documents and directing the flow of cash back to herself, Alan Nathan and, mostly, Bates. She said she never explicitly told Bates their operation could land them in prison, but insisted, "Mr. Bates knew exactly what he was doing." She said she forged signatures on mortgage documents and set Bates up with Nathan, who was instrumental in finding more "straw buyers" like Tennor. She sent emails saying she held earnest money she didn't have. "I did it for the money," she explained in court. "I was making pretty bad decisions at the time." But she made good money. She said she was paid $15,000 for each transaction. The indictment lists nine transactions, and there was at least one more. Nathan, a mortgage broker, got $20,000 on each transaction, but he had more at stake. Nathan was a straw buyer himself. When Bates' company, Right Choice Housing, failed to make the payments on the six properties fronted by himself or members of his family, he went broke trying to make the payments he never expected to make, according to court records. Nathan also falsified loan applications to make his family members appear to have greater incomes than they did, and he forged signatures on mortgage documents, according to federal authorities. Newman said she was desperate for money when she first met Bates. Nathan said Bates made a good impression at their first meeting. He arrived in a Mercedes-Benz and dressed well, which is how he has appeared in court. Newman said South Florida at the time was "riddled" with similar schemes. She said anyone involved in real estate deserved a share of the blame for the collapse of the housing market. "We hurt the real estate market and, I think, created the fall," Newman said. |
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