With several dozen Las Vegas Homeowner Associations mired in the muck of a federal corruption investigation, members of one association have learned they may be targeted by huge IRS assessments and fines.
Sun City Summerlin Community Association is not one of the Nevada HOAs where investigators have found corrupt cops and judges and lawyers. But this HOA’s accounting practices are attracting lots of federal attention.
Investigators of HOA corruption in Las Vegas have scored another bit hit. They have indicted a Bevery Hills man for felony embezzlement and theft. The indicment accuses Massoud Aaron Yashouafar of stealing more than a million dollars from the Paradise Spa Homeowners Association. Yashouafar was the treasurer of the HOA.
In the past two years, two fires have erupted in the complex in Las Vegas. Insurance companies gave Yashouafar up to a million dollars to repair the damage. But owners of units in the complex say they never received any insurance money, and to this day Paradise spa is marred by the two fires.
Leave it to the Las Vegas crowd to figure out a way to intimidate a police informant!
David Amesbury, a lawyer, is one of ten suspects who’ve pleaded guilty in the Las Vegas HOA corruption case. His guilty plea means he’s going to be a star witness against a massive scheme to rig elections in Las Vegas Homeowners Associations, and steer hundreds of millions of dollars in construction defect litigation to certain attornies and building contractors.
The FBI’s HOA investigation continues to fall into place with a tenth guilty plea. Denise Keser is the first suspect to publicly implicate two well-known targets of the federal investigation, attorney Nancy Quon and businessman Leon Benzer who runs a popular nightclub and several construction companies.
Keser pleaded guilty to one county of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. She admitted in federal court that she took part in s scheme to illegally gain control of HOA boards by rigging elections. The phony Homeowners Association boards would then steer construction defect litigation to attorney Quon, who would in turn steer construction work to Benzer’s construction companies.
There’s no way to explain how significant the Homeowners Association corruption scandal in Las Vegas really is. It’s huge, of course, for Nevadans. More than any other state, HOA members there have seen their home values plummet, sometimes up to 80 percent.
In the Las Vegas disgrace, a fifth person, Angela Esparza, 24, has now pleaded guilty to helping rig HOA board elections with phony ballots and proxies. She’ll get off easy, though. It’s sad to see that she’ll get a light sentence, but at least she’ll be snitching on some of the other major suspects in this stenchy scandal.
