Elderly, Infirm Foreclosure Rescue Scammer Dodges Prison Time After Guilty Plea In Fractional Interest Deed Transfer Bankruptcy Ripoff

In Los Angeles, California, the Contra Costa Times reports:

• 75-year-old Van Nuys man was ordered [] to spend a total of eight months in a halfway house and under home confinement for his role in a scheme that used phony bankruptcy filings to stall foreclosures of nearly 1,500 homes. Darwin Bowman pleaded guilty in February in Los Angeles federal court to bankruptcy fraud.


• U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson, noting Bowman's age and ill health, sentenced him to four months in a halfway house and four months in home confinement, followed by three years under supervised release.


• "I don't think you ought to give him gold stars ... to my way of thinking he's a crook," Wilson said, but added that he would have a hard time sending Bowman to prison when the defendant's condition was taken into consideration. Bowman was the third person to plead guilty in the case.


• According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Evan J. Davis, the perpetrators of the scheme improperly postponed foreclosures on $725 million worth of mortgages and caused banks and lenders to lose out on loan payments from homeowners.


• Bowman -- and co-defendants Irving Cohen and Robin Phillips-- advertised a foreclosure rescue service that promised at-risk homeowners their properties could be saved in exchange for monthly payments of about $1,500, Davis said.


• After collecting the first fee installment, the defendants had the property owner sign a deed that granted a one-eighth interest in the home to a fictitious person. They would then file a bankruptcy petition in the name of the non-existent individual without the homeowner's knowledge, Davis said. The fraudulent bankruptcy filing triggered an automatic stay of the foreclosure proceedings in each instance.


• When a lender would succeed in having the bankruptcy case dismissed, the defendants would have their client sign another deed that granted another interest in the home to a different fictitious person. They would then file another bankruptcy case in the new fictitious person's name, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.


• The fraudulent deeds and bankruptcy filings allowed the defendants to repeatedly postpone foreclosures while collecting $550,000 in fees from homeowners, prosecutors said.

For the story, see Van Nuys man sentenced to probation in foreclosure-rescue scam.

See Final Report Of The Bankruptcy Foreclosure Scam Task Force for a discussion of fractional interest deed transfer scams and other foreclosure rescue rackets involving the abuse of the bankruptcy courts.

Go here for other posts on fractional interest deed transfer, foreclosure rescue bankruptcy scams.