Micron Associates reports Real Estate Firm after Owner Admitted Stealing over $600k Health from Sellers-Slideboom

New Jersey- A couple Joann Smith and Wayne Betha who owns the real estate firm pleaded guilty to stealing from home sellers by taking profits from home sales, and well as defrauding mortgage companies by falsifying the earnings of loan applicants.
According to the report released on Mortgage Fraud Blog and reviewed with the Micron Associates Professionals, it showed that between the month of August 2006 and February 2008, with their real estate firm, S&B Property Management and Maintenance LLC of Trenton, the couple stole over $600,000 from sellers in connection with 11 home sales. Smith and Betha ostensibly averted the sales into their own bank accounts for their personal use, misleading the seller into believing they were not entitled to all of the profits from their homes.
The couple used a variety of schemes to fraudulently divert proceeds from the home sales into bank accounts maintained by Smith and S&B. They represented to sellers and title companies that monies were owed to them for expenses, including property renovations and repairs that were never done and exorbitant consultant fees that they claimed the sellers had authorized. Many of the checks issued by the title companies handling the property sales were written to the home sellers, but Smith convinced the sellers to sign the checks over to her for payment of business expenses and fees. In several instances, the defendants falsely indicated on HUD forms and tax forms that the sellers directly received all of the profits from the home sales. They also omitted to tell sellers that they were agreeing in mortgage closing documents to pay large, unauthorized “seller’s concessions or seller’s assists” to the buyers.
Most of the sellers were having serious health financial problems and could not continue paying their mortgages. The 11 homes are in Trenton (4 homes), Ewing (1 home), Hamilton (2 homes), Orange (1 home), Willingboro (2 homes), and Camden (1 home), New Jersey.
In arranging for sales of three of the homes, Smith and Betha provided false information about the salary or wages of the buyers on settlement forms filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and mortgage applications, causing three mortgage companies to issue loans totaling approximately $641,800.
The victims were not financially sophisticated. They did not understand the details of the property closings and, because of their financial woes, were anxious to be free of the obligation of paying mortgages they could no longer afford. Smith and Betha took advantage of these facts to steal the victims’ profits from the home sales.
Smith sometimes wrote false notations on checks written from her account and the S&B account to make it appear that payments were made for home repairs. Other times she would write a small check to the seller and write “gift” in the memo portion of the check. Smith and Betha used the diverted funds for personal expenses, withdrawing hundreds of thousands of dollars, primarily as ATM withdrawals, checks written to cash, and checks written to Betha.
No corporate business tax returns were filed with the State of New Jersey for S&B for 2005 through 2008. Smith also failed to file state personal income tax returns for those years. Betha failed to file a state personal income tax return for 2007.
Under their plea agreements, they will each face a sentence of five to 10 years in state prison and will be required to enter a consent judgment to pay restitution to the home sellers, as well as the mortgage lenders, to the extent that the lenders have sustained losses.
» Micron Associates reports Real Estate Firm after Owner Admitted Stealing over $600k Health from Sellers-Slideboom