Prosecutor: "Slow Learner ... To Get Free Rent" As Career Scammer Gets 6 Yrs In Title-Snatching, Home-Hijacking Racket; Used Homes As Bail Collateral

In Hamilton County, Ohio, The Cincinnati Enquirer reports:

• Do not rent a house or take a check from David Halsell. Halsell has been to Ohio prisons three times for financial chicanery, including renting out houses he didn't own. Now, he's going back to prison - this time for six years - for trying to get placed in his name other houses he never owned.

• "He's a slow learner," Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Bill Anderson said. Halsell, 44, pleaded guilty Friday to five counts of tampering with records in exchange for six other charges being dropped and a promise to cooperate with authorities to unravel all of his crimes. [...] "He's going to get free rent for a while," Anderson said.(1)

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• Despite Halsell's extensive criminal history, Anderson allowed him a plea deal even though authorities could have pressed dozens more similar charges against him. "Let's put it this way. We only indicted him on 11 counts. We were aware of 45 others," Anderson said.

• That's because Halsell's "home ownership" impacts other parts of the government. "He was using some of this property to bail people out [of jail]," Anderson said. When someone is jailed and a bond is set, property can sometimes be used to fund the bond - and get that person released from jail. That investigation continues.

For more, see Man rented out homes he didn't own.

(1) According to the story, Hamilton County Auditor employees grew suspicious when they noticed several Halsell-owned companies -- American Assets & Property Management, Inc., Cincinnati H&H Real Estate Services and Adam Investments -- were filing large amounts of ownership transfer requests in that office. Auditor Dusty Rhodes said there were so many transactions coming in that it looked funny, at which point prosecutors were called in to begin an investigation, the story states. Reportedly, some of the property was in foreclosure and some had deceased owners, according to Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Bill Anderson.