Bills Faces New Fraud Charges

Five MTC Real Estate staff on mortgage fraud scheme involving loans totaling over $3 million

A third person, Gary Gelman, 39, of Brooklyn, New York, has also been charged with the same securities fraud and wire fraud, but remains at large.

BY STREET HYPE INVESTIGATORS

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York Field Division last Wednesday filed new fraud charges against the self-styled "foreclosure specialist" and a regular guest on WVIP Radio 93.5 FM, Lavette M. Bills, 36, and her business associate, Kirk Lacey, 36.

Bills, Lacey, Omar, Henry and Peter Chevere of the Bronx-based MTC Real Estate, Inc., were joinly charged in the Manhattan federal court with perpetrating a mortgage fraud scheme involving loans totaling over $3 million on at least six different residences.

Bills of Briarcliff Manor, New York, and Lacey of Pembroke Pines, Florida, were previously arrested and charged with perpetrating a similar mortgage fraud scheme involving loans totaling over $800,000 on March 17.

Henry, 26, and Chevere, 21, both of the Bronx last week surrendered to authorities. According to the indictment filed in Manhattan federal court, Bils was the Chief Executive officer of MTC Real Estate, Inc., and Lacey, Henry and CHEVERE all worked for MTC during various periods between 2008 and in or about March 2009.

Bills targeted homeowners who had fallen behind on their mortgage payments and whose homes were facing foreclosure by running radio advertisements and appearing on radio programs representing that she was a “foreclosure specialist” and had the ability to keep a home from going into foreclosure.

Bills and Lacey were then able to convince some of these homeowners to sell or transfer their homes to Bills or to a company Bills controlled, NNI, LLC.

This was usually done via a “short sale,” in which the lender agreed to sell the property for less than the balance owed on the loan and to discharge the remainder of the loan.

In at least one case involving a residence on Tinton Avenue in the Bronx, Bills convinced the homeowner to place Bills’ name on the deed to the house and to “gift” the equity in the house to Bills, in return for Bills’ fraudulent promise to transfer the house back to a relative of the homeowner.

However, without the knowledge of either the lenders who approved the short sales, or of the selling homeowners, Bills and Lacey or their co-conspirators “flipped” the properties to third-party straw buyers at a higher price, usually on the same day or within a short period of time.

The sales price in the second transactions– the “flips” — was often significantly higher–typically by $150,000 or more — than the short sale price, yet the homeowners typically received little or no money from the sale of their homes.

To accomplish this, Bills and Lacey deceived both the straw buyers and the lenders who were providing the mortgages to finance the purchases.

In some instances, the straw buyers thought that they were helping the homeowner “save” his or her home from foreclosure, or they were told that they were purchasing an investment property.

The straw buyers were also often told that they would not need to make mortgage payments on the property, either because the payments would be made on their behalf, or because the payments would be covered by the rental income from the property.

The defendants convinced lenders to give the straw buyers mortgages to purchase properties the straw buyers could not otherwise afford by falsifying certain personal and financial information about the straw buyers.
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