Monday, October 31, 2016

Real Estate Agent Gets 6+ Months For Duping Family In Foreclosure Into Sale Leaseback Ripoff; Conned Homeowner Into Signing Over Deed Coupled With Promise To Give It Back, Then Stripped Equity From Home With Multiple Fraudulently-Obtained Mortgages; Subsequently-Evicted Victims Left Homeless

From the Office of the Santa Clara County, California District Attorney:
  • A San Jose real estate agent was sentenced to more than six months in jail [], after being convicted of scamming about $750,000 from a family and four banks.

    Nancy Kempis, 64, convinced a local family to sell their home to her to save them from foreclosure. Instead Kempis used the house to get multiple fraudulent mortgages and then defaulted herself.

    Kempis disappeared after being charged with 5 felony counts: 1 count of conspiracy to defraud, and 4 counts of grand theft. The fugitive from Santa Clara wrote a self-published book and hid out in New York, using the alias Morpheus Daw Pud Ko, before she was found and arrested this summer.

    “Ms. Kempis scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars and drove a family into homelessness,” prosecutor Charles Huang said. “We are pleased that despite her attempt to flee justice, she was held accountable for her crimes.”

    Between 2006 and 2009, Kempis convinced a family to sell their home to her at a dramatically reduced price, then rented it back to them with the promise that she would eventually give the house back to them.

    After Kempis stripped the home of its remaining equity by defrauding banks, she pocketed the loans. When the home was foreclosed, the family was evicted from their home and became homeless.

    Investigator Tanaya Rose found Kempis living under an alias in New York City, helping to run a women’s ministry.