Tricked out of home deed, couple say
Lawsuit says scammers preyed on their distress
By Craig S. Semon TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
AUBURN— An Auburn couple have sued several people — including one who tried to flee the country with $1.3 million and has pleaded guilty to wire fraud in an unrelated case — of swindling them out of the title to their home.
Auburn Fire Lt. Francis X. Hartnett, 35, and Kim M. Carville, 34, have been together for 12 years. They have two boys, ages 15 and 11, and have lived at 19 Inwood Road for eight years. Last month, Mr. Hartnett and Ms. Carville say, they found out they lost title to their house two years ago.
Mr. Hartnett and Ms. Carville contend the title was stolen by Stuart Brown, Trisha Graham and Allen J. Seymour, who was arrested Feb. 8 in Florida trying to flee the country on a private jet with $1.3 million hidden in his luggage.
On July 22, Mr. Seymour pleaded guilty to wire fraud and interstate transportation of property stolen or taken by fraud. He recently was named by Assistant Attorney General Andrew Doherty as the mastermind behind an alleged mortgage fraud scheme in an investigation involving as many as 60 properties in Worcester County.
Mr. Hartnett and Ms. Carville said they had fallen behind in their mortgage payments to Ameriquest Mortgage Co. because of illness. The $156,000 mortgage, which they had gotten in December 2003, was scheduled for a foreclosure sale in early November 2005.
A few days before the scheduled sale, their lawyer, Margaret M. Melican, said, Mr. Seymour came knocking on their door and offered to help.
“Their home was scheduled to be foreclosed just a couple of days later, which would have meant that they would have forever lost their home, have to move out and be displaced,” Ms. Melican explained. “So Allen Seymour promised them that he could find a way to stop that foreclosure and leave them in their home.”
“He came at the 11th hour,” Mr. Hartnett added. “We were in desperate times and, at the time, he looked like a savior.”
He said that in the next few days, Mr. Seymour returned to the couple’s home twice — first with lawyer Robert F. Creasia and later with Ms. Graham, who was introduced to them as an “investor.”
During the first return visit, Mr. Hartnett and Ms. Carville insist they signed only one paper, which they say they were told was the second page of an authorization to check the couple’s credit.
“The front page was to give them permission to check our credit, which I thought I was signing. When I signed it, there was nothing else written on the second (page) except two lines to sign on, one for me and one for him (Mr. Hartnett),” Ms. Carville said. “They took the top page off and put a different top page on and added the notary public stuff underneath it.”
A search of the records at the Worcester Registry of Deeds shows that a deed, dated Nov. 15, 2005, conveyed the property from Mr. Hartnett and Ms. Carville to Mr. Brown. The deed, which was recorded Dec. 20, 2005, is notarized by Judith Ann Lebeau.
Ms. Melican said the top page was switched and the notary public added sometime between Nov. 3 and Dec. 20, 2005.
During the next visit, the couple said, they learned they would have to pay almost $400 a week to keep up the expenses of the property, which would come out to be about the same as their monthly mortgage payments.
On Dec. 19, 2005, Mr. Brown signed two mortgages to World Savings Bank, and a $156,000 mortgage to Ameriquest was subsequently discharged. One of the new mortgages was for a negative amortization loan that eventually could have a principal balance of $276,562.50, which was 125 percent of the amount borrowed. The other mortgage was for $44,250. The mortgages were recorded Dec. 20, 2005, immediately after the recording of the deed to Mr. Brown.
Ms. Melican said Mr. Hartnett and Ms. Carville started making payments to Ms. Graham and thought the money was going toward their mortgage.
“We were so afraid to lose our home that we were ready to agree to almost anything,” Ms. Carville recalled. “In any event, we believed that Tricia Graham and Allen Seymour were trying to help us. We thought we were paying our own mortgage, the default for which had been cured somehow by Allen Seymour. Although Allen Seymour referred to the payments as ‘rent,’ we still thought we were paying our own mortgage.”
On July 24, Superior Court Judge Peter W. Agnes Jr. granted restraining orders against Wachovia Bank, the present holder of the delinquent mortgage, from foreclosing, and against Ms. Graham and Mr. Brown from collecting rent, coming to the property and evicting the couple and their two boys from the premises.
Posted by on 08/17 at 04:04 AM
Rachel Dollar is an attorney and Certified Mortgage Banker who handles fraud recovery litigation for lenders and secondary market investors nationwide. She is a nationally recognized speaker on the topic of mortgage fraud. Ms. Dollar is licensed to practice law in California and maintains offices in Santa Rosa, California. 
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