Thomas Franklin Tarbutton, Orange County, California, an alleged hard money lender, has been charged with running a real estate ponzi scheme, embezzling funds from investors by keeping the money they lent for borrowers and not funding the loans as promised.
According to the charges, Tarbutton is accused of operating Villa Capital Inc. as a hard money lender by soliciting money from private investors for borrowers looking for funds from nonbank lenders.
Between 2004 and 2010, the defendant allegedly defrauded nine people in a Ponzi real estate fraud scheme. Tarbutton is further accused of embezzling from his private investors by keeping the money they lent for borrowers and not funding the loans as promised. He is accused of providing his victims with fraudulent and forged real estate documents from the Orange County Clerk-Recorder Department showing that they were lien holders on property deeds. He is accused of supplying investors with false and forged mortgage payments and fraudulent documents of investment of the mortgage payments.
The defendant is accused of supplying investors with small interest payments using funds from their initial investment to prevent them from discovering that the loans had not been repaid.
