Tag Archives: Federal investigators

A Great Resource & Great Publicity

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guest blog by Jill Schweitzer

I’m a painter, and painting a picture: Imagine living in a neighborhood where you can’t have a bench to sit on in your front yard. Imagine a Board member tries getting the board to fix a drainage issue multiple times, the Board and HOA property manager do nothing, and the condo eventually floods. Imagine having a leak for 11 months in your dining room, HOA still has not fixed it. Imagine an HOA trying to get the Board to agree to sign a Code of Conduct giving all control to the President and property manager, the rest of the Board does nothing in between meetings. Imagine a property manager that is so bad that 12% of the owners sell and move out in approximately six months, and note that the management company makes $4800 in transfer/disclosure fees as their reward for poor management?

Also note that most of those new buyers probably weren’t too happy this week to receive notice there may be a 3-5 thousand dollars special assessment. Imagine a property management company trying to charge for coupons, charging for printing because they think it’s different from copies, and trying to pay the old company a ridiculously high termite warranty renewal fee and then pretending the new termite company only gave a two year warranty, when it’s actually five years…all these situations have happened.

“Buying into an HOA with your eyes wide open” is a 22 page report about HOAs in Arizona, but basically applies everywhere. The situations above didn’t make it into the report. This week the report is being released to the world…if everyone gives it to five people, with the ‘give to five people’ message, the information could spread. Send to friends, realtors, legislators, Association of Realtors, Real Estate Commissioner, judges, news stations..even leave copies in your Doctor’s office. How refreshing to grab this report rather than your typical waiting room magazine.

One piece of material educating people on many aspects of HOA living, with a multitude of examples, written to help buyers know what they need to look for when buying into an HOA. A real eye opener…change occurs one buyer and one HOA at a time.

Legislators need to make substantial changes to the law and can’t ignore this. If they do, lets hold a rally. Most real estate agents I know are disgusted and want this changed. Today it was made available to 4700 of them. Please help by giving this report to 5 people and ask them to give it out to five people.

(go to report, print this out and distribute)

(KPHO-TV news story about Jill Schweitzer’s brochure!)

Nevada Judge Finally Shows Some Guts

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Well, good old Las Vegas mobster Leon Benzer has finally met justice in his plan to steal millions and millions of dollars from Homeowners Associations. Not much justice, but at least federal judge James Mahan has now sentenced Benzer to 15 1/2 years in federal prison. With ‘good time’ he may end up spending seven years behind bars. Most of his 38 co-conspirators in the massive scam to take over Las Vegas Homeowners Associations got probation to a year-and-a-half in prison.

Of the other conspirators, a number have died, some of them by suicide. Benzer was the last to be sentenced in the long-running case.

How much did Benzer steal from homeowners? Untold millions. But this gangster’s damage has ripples that will go on forever. Home values in Las Vegas crashed, people lost their homes and all their retirement savings. Foreclosures spiked because so much money was bled out of HOAs. Investigators have said Benzer & Company actually stole somewhere beween 60 and 100 million dollars from homeowners.

But get ready for the real story: It hasn’t happened yet. Leon Benzer is very familiar with Mexico. A ton of money he stole ended up in a Mexican resort. There are links in the HOA investigation to a Mexican drug cartel. Benzer once owned his own Mexican tequila company. He doesn’t have to report for prison until November 6th. As fundamentally corrupt as this piece of trash is, what would stop him from crossing the border? Oh, that’s right. He might not be able to get across the ‘border fence.’

We’ll see.

(BTW, Benzer reads this website! How’s it goin’ Leon?)

(link to Las Vegas Review-Journal story on Benzer’s sentence)

 

Take The Survey!

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Our frequent guest blogger, Deborah Goonan, is part of a team of consumer advocates conducting a nationwide HOA survey. In addition to a social media presence, she has posted it on her own web page at Indepentent American Communities (IAC). Obviously, such a survey is more accurate when the survey sample is large. And the more people who respond, the more likely our combined voices will be heard. So, if you haven’t participated yet, please do.

In email exchanges around the country I have a rough idea of what many Americans think about HOAs, POAs and condo associations. But Deborah has fine-tuned a number of survey questions and the results will ultimately be distributed to policy makers.

It’s finally your time to be heard! Here’s your chance to begin the process of making change happen.

(link to HOA survey)

 

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

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Yep. That’s a Constitutional right and we all respect it. But it doesn’t mean we can’t discuss indictments and criminal charges. That’s public record.

The Carbon Canyon 1 Homeowners Association in Chino Hills, California thinks it’s been victimized to the tune of $128,792, money embezzled between 2013 and 2014. The San Bernardino Sheriff’s Office did an investigation. And the HOA treasurer, Julie Calderon is now facing charges of grand theft by embezzlement and embezzlement by a public or private officer. Her preliminary hearing is August 25th.

(link to latest HOA embezzlement)

 

 

Pathetic Excuse for a Judge

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It’s another sad day for Nevada homeowners. Federal Judge James Mahan has given another one of the Las Vegas HOA swindlers a sissy sentence. Organized crime swindler Charles McChesney was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. Ultimately, he’ll only spend 15 months there.

Homeowners in Nevada lost untold millions of dollars when this crime ring ripped off Homeowners Associations all across the valley. They’ll never get a dime of that back. This was a vicious financial crime that completely changed the lives of many decent working and/or retired people. To give these swindlers only 30 months is a crime in itself. Even though only a dozen Homeowners Associations were named as victims in the case, inside information says there may have been hundreds more.

The FBI generated about four million pages of evidence and testimony. Had the investigation exposed the entire Nevada scam the evidence could have run into the hundreds of millions of pages.

Think of this: If crooked HOAs and management companies across the country were put through the same kind of investigative scrutiny there would be millions of convictions. There just aren’t enough prisons to hold everyone.

Yes, it’s a sad day for Nevada. But it’s even sadder for the rest of the country.

(link to Review Journal article on the prison sentence)