Articles Tagged with properties

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A Riverside County woman who worked as a foreclosure specialist at Fannie Mae in Irvine has been accused of taking over $1 million through accepting bribery and employing fraudulent sales practices with company-owned properties.

Shirene Hernandez, a 45-year-old resident of Riverside County, was a real estate owned foreclosure specialist for the government-sponsored Fannie Mae in Irvine. Her job duties entailed matching properties owned by the company with brokers and accepting sales offers when proposed by the brokers.

During a time period spanning from April 2011 and July 2016 Hernandez has been accused of personally profiting off of the sales transactions of the properties through fraudulent means. Court documents reflect that Hernandez allegedly accepted gifts and cash from certain brokers in order for them to gain the listing so they would profit off of the sales commissions. In addition, some of the foreclosed properties were said to have been purchased by Hernandez at a price below market value, using different names, and then rented out for profit. In total, it was estimated that Hernandez acquired more than $1 in profits from the alleged fraud.

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Angel Bronsgeest, a 55 year old woman from Lake Forest, plead guilty on Monday to federal charges of being involved in a real estate scam that cost Southern California investors $3.5 million, according to the United States Attorney’s Office.

Bronsgeest admitted that she, along with Shawn Watkins, a 46 year old man from Utah, would allegedly solicit the victims at Orange County hotel seminars and ask them to invest in their company, The Equity Growth Group. The two claimed that their company managed hundreds of properties, generating income from their rents, which was used to buy new properties. The investors were told they would be getting interest payments and that their money was secured by collateral through filing deeds of property trusts.

“Investor money was not used to acquire new properties, nor was it secured by collateral, and many victims did not receive interest payments. In fact, money that was paid to some victims as purported interest or a return on their investment came from investments made by other victims,” the Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

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