Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Man Indicted For Abuse of Foreclosure Process

Sergej Tews was charged in a 22-count indictment for his alleged involvment in a complex fraud scheme involving the abuse of the State of Florida’s foreclosure process. Through this fraudulent scheme, Tews defrauded third-party purchasers seeking to buy allegedly foreclosed properties of approximately $615,900.

Acording to the indictment, from March 2007 through August 2008, defendant Sergej Tews identified at least eight homeowners interested in relinquishing their mortgages and induced them to transfer their properties to him based on a promise that he would assume the payments on their outstanding mortgage loans.  With respect to each property, the property owner executed a warranty deed, prepared by Tews, which gave the false appearance that the property was being sold, not just transferred, to a third party.  These third parties were relatives of Tews.  In no instance did Tews’ relatives provide any money to the seller, make any payment on any outstanding mortgages, or even meet the seller.

Upon filing the false warranty deeds at the Miami-Dade County Recorder’s Office, Tews a) fabricated the amount paid for each property; b) hid the fact of the original homeowner’s outstanding mortgages; and c) paid the filing taxes based on the fabricated purchase price, making it appear as though the property had been purchased for the fraudulent amount.

At the same time that Tews filed the warranty deeds, he filed false mortgages with the Miami-Dade County Recorder’s Office, which were dated the same date as the warranty deeds.  The mortgages made it appear as if each of the Tews’s relatives had borrowed money from a supposed lending company to finance the alleged purchase of the property.  In each case, the supposed lending company was a company that Tews incorporated (in some instances, after the date of the alleged loan) and for which Tews was the owner, officer and general partner. 

None of Tews’s supposed lending companies were registered to do business in Florida nor were licensed to operate as a mortgage lender.  Additionally, Tews’s supposed lending companies each had a name notably similar to the name of an already existing mortgage lender registered to do business in Florida.  For example, he created a supposed lending company called Argent Mortgages, LLC, closely named after the established lender Argent Mortgage Company, LLC.  As another example, Tews created Fremont Lending, LLC, a bogus lending company named after the established Freemont Investment & Loan Company.  In no instance did any of Tews’s supposed lenders loan any money in connection with the false and fraudulent loans.  Regardless, Tews initiated foreclosure actions with respect to each property.

Tews executed and filed with Miami-Dade County courts a sworn affidavit of indebtedness claiming that the purported borrower, his relative, was in default of the fraudulent loan.  In each case, the alleged defaulting borrower never responded to the action, and the court issued a Final Judgment of Foreclosure in favor of the supposed foreclosing lender and scheduled a foreclosure sale where the properties were auctioned to the highest bidder.

At the foreclosure sales, third-party purchasers, deceived by Tews’s fraudulent warranty deeds and mortgages into believing that there were no pre-existing mortgages, bid on, and sometimes purchased, the properties.  As a result of his scheme, Tews received approximately $615,900 into his bank accounts.  The actual, outstanding lenders have since foreclosed on the properties.

mortgage fraud