Cops Looking To Supplement Retirement Benefits Duped Into Real Estate Flipping Scam, Says Lawsuit

In South Bend, Indiana, the South Bend Tribune reports:

• A local real estate investor and his son, already fighting separate mortgage fraud lawsuits from African immigrants, face a new suit filed by three South Bend police officers and a former officer. The officers, Jack Stilp, James Aters, Kris Hinton and James Turnbo III, say they were looking for investment income to supplement their pensions when they decided to buy rental properties through Michael Sheneman and his son, Jeremie Sheneman, in 2003 and 2004. Instead, two of the men have filed bankruptcy.

• Months after buying the properties, many in the same blighted neighborhoods the officers patrol on midnight shift, the officers say they learned some alarming things: The properties were worth less than what they had paid for them; the houses were in worse shape than the Shenemans had led them to believe; and the tenants already living in the houses weren't actual tenants, but rather, were paid by Michael Sheneman to pose as good tenants until the transactions were complete, their lawsuit claims.

Reportedly, the officers' lawsuit accuses the Shenemans, their company, and six other individuals of violating Indiana's racketeering law. Attorney Charles Lahey has agreed to represent them on a contingency fee basis, meaning he will only charge them a fee if he recovers damages. Lahey told The Tribune he and a paralegal researched the case for about nine months before filing the suit. For more, see South Bend officers allege mortgage fraud in lawsuit (They say they were conned while trying to supplement their retirement benefits).

For an earlier story describing others who claim to have been scammed by the Shenemans in real estate investments scams, see Mortgage maelstrom (Scheme appears to target African immigrants).