Las Vegas Alleged Straw Buyer Scam Bust Triggered By Foreclosure Rescue Investigation

In Nevada, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports:

• A mortgage scam spawned during the Southern Nevada housing boom led to the arrest Thursday of three defendants and pursuit of a fourth, the attorney general's office said Friday. Many of the 33 counts in the criminal complaint revolve around "straw man" schemes.

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• The investigation started when a consumer told the attorney general's Bureau of Consumer Protection that he didn't get a promised refund of advance fees for foreclosure protection services, Kelleher said. The attorney general's criminal division obtained a search warrant for offices used by Jeffrey Tye Brown, who ran DB Financial Group.

• Brown was charged on March 27 with two counts of theft, two counts of deceptive trade practices and one count of forgery. The charges said that Brown charged one couple $999 in foreclosure prevention fees and a second couple $750, but Brown failed to provide any services. Brown has disappeared and is believed to be in the Philippines, [assistant chief deputy attorney general and mortgage fraud task force chief John] Kelleher said.

• The new charges against Brown and three others include theft by misrepresentation, forgery, making false statements to obtain credit and racketeering. [...] Attorney general's senior investigator Isabel Camp and investigator Shelley Neiman on Thursday arrested Cindy Birkland, 38, owner of Sapphire Mortgage; Bryan Sears, 46, a general contractor who did business as Searco; and Searco employee Claudia Koziol, 59.

For more, see Three arrested, fourth sought in mortgage fraud (Many of 33 counts involved purported 'straw man' schemes).