Title/Escrow Firm Owner Cops Plea In Scam That Siphoned Off $2.5M In Proceeds In Real Estate Deals

In Minnesota, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports:

• A 50-year-old Chaska woman who had owned Profile Title and Escrow Corp. pleaded guilty Wednesday in a federal fraud and money-laundering scheme that siphoned off more than $2.5 million. Molly L. Heise had been sole shareholder and president of the title company in 2002 and 2003. It primarily closed loans on residential properties. Profile Title's underwriter, Chicago Title Insurance Co., required the company to deposit its mortgage loan proceeds into an escrow account at Eagle Valley Bank, where they could be monitored. But Heise secretly diverted substantial sums into an escrow account at EastBank and into an account at U.S. Bank, where she mixed personal and business money.

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• Heise allegedly spent more than $2 million on houses, landscaping, a Hummer, a motorhome, a Wisconsin cabin and a boat. [...] The former chief financial officer for Profile Title, Christine Hein, pleaded guilty in the case last month. Hein admitted diverting nearly $135,000 from a secret escrow account for a down payment on her home in Buffalo.

For more, see Title company owner from Chaska pleads guilty in fraud case.

See Theft Of Escrow Funds I and Theft Of Escrow Funds II for other stories of trust account / escrow account theft of funds. sneaky slick escrow agents beta