An Orange County couple that attended a real estate seminar is suing 12 people and seven corporations, claiming information they put on an event form regarding property they owned was used to “brazenly forge” their names and get
“a fraudulent $245,000 loan” secured by their real estate.
Gerald
and Marilyn Hays, who are represented in Orange County civil court by Costa Mesa attorney Jeffrey Benice, seek sole ownership of the title to their land, $15,000 to cover a notary bond, and an unspecified amount for damages from fraudulent concealment, unfair
trade, conversion, civil racketeering and negligence.
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The seminar was advertised to teach participants about buying properties in short sale and flipping them for a profit. But, according to the lawsuit, the real purpose was to pull a “fraudulent scheme.” Information from questionnaires passed out at the seminar was used to obtain properties, title
insurance and loans on unencumbered real estate.
In the case of the Hayses, the suit claims, they went into the seminar owning their property debt-free and soon after found $245,000 in property equity was eaten up by the fraudsters.
Named in the suit are: John Shallup, George G. Grachen and his daughter Katie
Grachen, Pete Rossell, Robert Yann, Salem Abbadi, Joyce Kim, James A.
Santan, Kaffi Botehsazan, Joanna G. Martinez, Edward Park, Aladdin
Alsarairah, Financial and Real
Estate Services Inc., Above Board Real Estate Solutions, Jo Cal
Investments, United Escrow Co., Orange Coast Title Company of Southern
California, Bency 26 LLC, and Merchants Bonding Co.
Neither the defendants nor their legal representatives could be reached for comment.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.