Career Scammer Gets 30 Months In Mortgage Fraud Scam; Ripped Off Home Sellers Out Of Million$ In Equity Using Bogus "Owner-Finance" Deals

In Fort Myers, Florida, the Naples Daily News reports:

• A Marco Island businessman involved in $30 million worth of shady land deals since the 1980s was sentenced Monday to 2½ years in a federal prison for a 2006 mortgage fraud case. U.S. District Judge John Steele also ordered Douglas Lee Carter Sr., 64, to serve three years of supervised release for filing a false mortgage application, prohibited him from financial dealings worth more than $500 without permission, ordered him to undergo mental health treatment and debt management counseling.

***

• His record of land deals in Collier Circuit Court is six pages long, filled with more than $30 million in mortgage foreclosures, judgments, dissatisfied sellers and buyers dating to 1984. Investigators here sought the FBI’s help. Of 84 cases against him, there also are judgments for non-payment of contracts, breach of contract, and specific performance, for reneging on payments.

• In the land deals, Carter would sign promissory notes with sellers, finance homes for more than they were worth, pocket the difference, and then stop payment. Sellers lost millions. Robbie and Jennie Gaude of Minnesota, who sold Carter their Marco Island home, lost $300,000 in 2005. “He never intended to pay anybody,” Robbie Gaude told the Daily News last year, comparing him to Bernie Madoff.

***

• The plea agreement says Carter agreed to pay Alan and Jane Lantieri $600,000 in 2006 for their home on 102nd Avenue North in Naples Park. But he lied on a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) statement by not disclosing a mortgage against the home, received a $540,000 loan, never paid the mortgage, and the house went into foreclosure.

For the story, see Marco Island businessman sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for mortgage fraud (Douglas Lee Carter Sr. has been linked to $30 million in mortgage foreclosures since the 1980s).

For an earlier post on Carter's antics, see SW Florida Man Accused Of Pocketing Cash At Real Estate Closings In Exchange For Seller-Held Promissory Notes, Then Stiffing Sellers With Hot Checks.