Illinois AG Files Suit Against Alleged Equity Stripping / Home Repair Scam Operation

From the Illinois Attorney General's Office:

• [Illinois] Attorney General Lisa Madigan continues to lead the fight against mortgage and home repair fraud [last week] by filing two lawsuits against mortgage brokers who sold complex mortgages to Illinois consumers. These suits are the first lawsuits filed by the Attorney General's Office focusing primarily on the origination of mortgage products that have played a major role in the series of events leading to the current subprime mortgage foreclosure crisis. [Last week's] filings follow a number of lawsuits filed by Madigan targeting the subprime mortgage crisis, including eight suits against mortgage rescue scam artists that prey upon homeowners threatened by foreclosure. [...] In one of the suits, it ... is alleged that homeowners were lured into mortgages by promises of grants from government-sponsored home repair programs. In fact, the government-sponsored home repair programs were completely fictitious. The homeowners never received grants or home repairs completed to their satisfaction.

In the lawsuit involving the alleged equity stripping home repair scam, Dayton D. Vickers Ellis, aka Dale Ellis, and his companies are accused of, among other things, sending direct mail solicitations advertising phony government programs, requiring mortgage applications from the homeowners that were purportedly part of the government grant process, and in many instances, having money disbursed from mortgage proceeds to his company without either having started or completed the home improvements contracted for. For more, see the Illinois AG Press Release - Attorney General Files Lawsuits Against Two Chicago Area Brokers to End Fraudulent Mortgage Lending and Home Repair Schemes.