Maryland Homebuilder Gets 12 Years For Pocketing Customer Deposits & Loan Proceeds, Failing To Build Homes

In Prince George's County, Maryland, The Washington Post reports:

• A District Heights developer was sentenced Monday to 12 years in prison for collecting more than $1 million from banks and home buyers for houses that were never built. Leon Coleman promised 11 buyers that he would build homes in Kings Grant, a new subdivision in Upper Marlboro, but he never built them. Instead, prosecutors said, Coleman pocketed $206,000 and used some of the rest of the money to buy land and pay closing costs.

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• In 2005, the Maryland attorney general's office won a civil lawsuit against Coleman and his wife, Emma, who were ordered to pay about $500,000 in fines and to repay about $1 million of the money they obtained. The Colemans never complied. The Prince George's County state's attorney's office pursued the case as a criminal matter after being contacted by the home buyers.(1)

For more, see Developer Gets Prison for Theft From Buyers.

See also, Maryland Gazette: Upper Marlboro homebuilder sentenced to 12 years (Man ordered to pay restitution after swindling millions from buyers):

• In his sentencing, [Judge Leo E. Green Jr.] said he considered Coleman's lengthy criminal background, which dates to 1989 and includes embezzlement convictions in Baltimore and Virginia; a 1990 dishonorable discharge from the Army for larceny and forgery; and a 2002 grand larceny conviction, for which Coleman received a year of probation. [...] His case is the first to be prosecuted in Prince George's County under Maryland's Custom Homebuilder Act, which was enacted in 1986, and Green said he wanted to send a message to developers that misspending the money of hard-working, middle-class residents will not be tolerated.

(1) According to the story, would-be buyer Glenn Miller said his savings are depleted, his credit score has plummeted and his dream of sending his daughter to college has nearly evaporated. Ranah Harris Johnson, another buyer, said she believes that the stress caused her to miscarry one of her twins. Another buyer, Jennifer Lewis-Gooden, said "a very fragile marriage fell apart" in part because of the couple's financial turmoil.