Lawyer, NYC Dominatrix Bagged In Alleged $50M Mortgage Scam; Scores Of High End Homes End Up Foreclosed; Fetish Customers "Posed" As Straw Buyers: DA

In Suffolk County, New York, Newsday reports:

• A former Suffolk legislator, a Manhattan dominatrix and several other people were charged Wednesday in what Suffolk prosecutors said was a $50 million web of mortgage fraud that began in a Manhattan fetish club and ended with scores of pricey Southampton homes ownerless and in foreclosure. George Guldi, 57, of Westhampton Beach, a private attorney since leaving the Suffolk Legislature in 2003, acted as the lawyer in dozens of fraudulent transactions that made him millions, prosecutors said. Guldi and others took out mortgages for more than 50 East End homes on behalf of fake buyers, pocketed the money, then left the houses to languish once payments came due, prosecutors said.

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• Prosecutors said the fake borrowers, or straw buyers, were recruited by a Manhattan couple, Donald MacPherson, 65, and Carrie Coakley, 38, from among the clientele of their Manhattan sexual fetish fantasy business, Arena Studios.(1)

For more, see DA: Ex-pol, dominatrix ran mortgage fraud scheme.

See also, Prosecutors: Here's how mortgage scam worked.

For story update, see Attorney to Challenge Office Raid After Arrest in Mortgage Scam Tied to Dominatrix Club.

(1) According to Arena Studio's Web site, the Broome Street company provides space for dominatrixes to meet clients, boasts a "beautifully decorated and fully equipped private dungeon," and, among other items, rents out "medieval torture" implements, bondage furniture and three kinds of whips, Newsday reports. In return for payments of $5,000 to $10,000, clients of the dungeon and others posed on paper as buyers of expensive homes all over the Town of Southampton, Suffolk DA Thomas Spota said.