Brooklyn Builder Flees Country Leaving 40+ Families In Foreclosure In Alleged $15M Mortgage Scam

In New York City, The New York Daily News reports:

• More than 40 Brooklyn families face eviction and foreclosure on condos they bought from a developer who pulled off a massive swindle and then fled the country. The families, all Hasidim from Crown Heights, paid developer Eliyahu Ezagui - one of their own - for the apartments before they were built at two sites: 770 Lefferts Ave. and 613 East New York Ave. "We trusted him, we thought we knew him, he told us he had the blessing of the grand rabbi. We had contracts, so we gave him the money," said Jeff Minsky, who lives at 613 with his wife and six children.

• Ezagui, 47, did not give the buyers deeds when construction was completed in what is the single biggest local case of subprime mortgage fraud on record. Instead, Ezagui deeded 64 apartments to himself, his father, his mother, his wife and two business associates. The Ezagui group then used the deeds to take out more than $15 million in owner-occupied mortgages from 15 lenders, including Ameriquest Mortgage Co., Olympia Funding and Chase. Mortgage payments have not been made and the real apartment owners have received foreclosure notices.

For more, see Builder flees & 40 Hasidic families face eviction in Brooklyn swindle.

See also, The Jerusalem Post: Defrauded Crown Heights residents fight for their homes.

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