More On Local Judge's Involvement In North Jersey Home Flipping Scam

In a story posted this morning, the New Jersey Law Journal reports:

• A Garfield, N.J., lawyer who is also the town's judge may have played a central role in a scheme to defraud lenders by obtaining mortgages based on inflated appraisals of run-down properties. A state civil suit points to Garfield solo [practitioner] William Colacino Jr. as the lawyer referred to in a federal criminal case as "W.C.," an unindicted co-conspirator whose legal services, law office, attorney bank accounts and legal assistant were allegedly used in the scheme.

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• The criminal scheme is laid out in an information charging Paramus, N.J., real estate agent Michael Eliasof with ... conspiring with 12 others to engage in monetary transactions involving more than $10,000 derived from wire fraud, with the object of laundering proceeds of fraudulently obtained mortgage loans.

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• The civil suit, Beggs v. Eliasof, L-2343-06, filed in Passaic County Superior Court last year, sues Colacino by name, along with Eliasof, for misrepresentation, fraud, unjust enrichment, malpractice, consumer fraud and negligence in connection with the purchase of four investment properties in 2004 and 2005, three in Paterson and one in Newark. Colacino allegedly handled the closings while Eliasof allegedly made false promises about repairing and managing the properties and paying off the mortgages. Other defendants include Paterson Management, identified in the criminal information as controlled by Eliasof and used in the flipping scheme, and William Ottavian, who allegedly held himself out as a licensed appraiser with a Pine Brook, N.J., company.

For more, see Lawyer-Judge May Be at Center of Land-Flip Fraud.

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