Another Consumer Blogger Gets It!
Ah, it’s so good when you see member of the real estate industry who finally discovers that all is not good in HOA Amerika! I hope he continues his research. He’s going to be stunned!
Tag Archives: FBI
Another Scumbag Heads to Prison
With all the tens of billions of dollars being embezzled from homeowners and Homeowners Associations across the country, you’d think sending a crook to prison wouldn’t be that unusual a news story. Sadly, stories like the one linked below are pretty rare.
An embezzler in Utah who operates in a number of states has been sentenced by a federal judge in Nevada to three years in prison. Oh yes, he has to make four million dollars in restitution. At least those are the terms of his plea bargain. What? He stole all those millions and has no way to pay it back? Then why isn’t he in prison for life?
(link to Salt Lake City Tribune story on tiny sentence for big fraud)
No Wonder Nevada Officials Are Fighting!
PLEASE SEND THIS NEIGHBORS AT WAR LINK TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!
All during the Las Vegas HOA scandal, there were rumors about a judge somehow being involved in the massive scam. Prosecutors have been steadfastly refusing to show public records to the Las Vegas Review Journal. The newspaper sued. Finally some intriguing things are leaking out. The judge is none other than the Chief Justice of the Nevada Supreme Court!
According to the Journal, one of the 43 HOA crooks swore under oath that she got a text from fellow criminal Nancy Quon that Chief Justice Nancy Saitta was warning her the FBI was raiding all the HOAs. It’s crazy how many lawyers were involved in this scam! (Shades of Pennsylvania?)
Is there any question that the Las Vegas Review Journal has had to fight tooth and nail to get this scam uncovered? The prosecutor is still withholding millions of documents. How many more surprises are hidden in all those boxes? Maybe even another top state politician? A few members of the U.S. Attorney’s office? In Nevada you don’t get rich at the tables. You get rich by stealing from homeowners.
BTW, as a lifelong investigative reporter I could probably tell you exactly where this latest leak came from. I’ve used that source many times to get ‘secret’ depositions.
(link to Judge Saitta story in Las Vegas Review Journal)
HOA Housing Craziness In Aspen!
I’ve written about this before. But here’s another great column from the Aspen Times. Wages are so out-of-control in this Eastern Hollywood Town, that the City of Aspen is using taxpayers’ money to pay for the maintenance of Homeowners Associations where all the ‘low-income’ workers live. The whole system is warped in more ways than can be easily discussed. But the columnist linked below does a pretty good job.
Homeowners Associations are a national scandal waiting to burst. But making the taxpayer pay the cost of keeping this scam going is just stretching the imagination too far.
(link to Aspen Times story on taxpayer funded HOAs)
HOA Embezzlement & Fraud
I love the FBI. I love the many federal agents I have known. But my pet peeve is that the FBI, which keeps track of annual crime statistics, does not keep track of the number of Homeowners Associations which have been hit by an embezzlement by board members or property managers. Thus, it’s my belief that embezzlement from HOAs is the largest unreported crime in America. Nobody keeps track!
A couple of years ago a multi-million dollar embezzlement impacted a number of HOAs in Denver. Just about every major city has suffered some kind of massive HOA theft. Good grief, Las Vegas lost more than 60 million dollars when a ring of HOA swindlers decided that HOAs were too stupid and weak to stop embezzling. Some of the crooks were among the highest and finest of society. The FBI is credited with sending 43 HOA officials, lawyers, cops and property managers to prison. But I fault the feds for not going further. This same kind of corruption infests HOAs across the country. The corruption is being fed by massive legal fees going from homeowners into the pockets of complicit attorneys. And Legislatures across America know exactly what’s going on, but they refuse to reign in the corruption. It’s all about the money. Never, ever think that money doesn’t play a huge part in keeping a corrupt system alive.
It’s all about the money.
(link to article on how HOAs can protect themselves against fraud and embezzlement)
