Lead Man In 3-Person, Title Hijacking Racket Gets 97 Months For Forging & Recording Dozens Of 'Dirty Deeds' On Vacant Foreclosed Homes, Then Peddling Them For Rent Or Sale To Unwitting Victims

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Delaware County Daily Times reports:

• A Chester man who pleaded guilty last year in a scheme to gain ownership over government- and bank-owned properties in Delaware County was sentenced [] to more than eight years in a federal prison.
  
  Steven Hameed, 57, was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay $190,818 in restitution, according to the sentence handed down Feb. 15 by U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Savage.
  
  Hameed and co-conspirators Darnell Young, 49, and Damond Palmer, 42, were arrested in December 2015 following a joint investigation by local and federal law enforcement, including Delaware County detectives, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Aston and Upper Darby police departments.
  
  The defendants filed bogus deed documents in the Delaware County Recorder of Deeds office between Feb. 2010 and March 2013 labeled with some variation of “Revised Full Reconveyance of Living Trust Deed Claims” or “Revised Full Reconveyance of Trust Deed of Release,” according to court records.
  
  The properties the documents referenced were located throughout the county, including Chester, Aston, Sharon Hill, Upper Chichester, Marple and Upper Darby. The defendants would use the fictitious deeds to either live in the homes, or rent or sell them to unsuspecting third parties, according to prosecutors.
  
  An indictment indicates Hameed, Young and Palmer delivered false and fraudulent deeds for 54 such properties to Delaware County Solicitor Michael Maddren in March 2012 alone, along with paperwork denying any claim Wells Fargo Bank might have to the parcels.
  
  The defendants, all of whom pleaded guilty in June 2016, also filed hundreds of false tax forms against police officers, judges and other government employees in an attempt to harass and intimidate them.(1) The fraudulent IRS forms indicated the defendants paid dividends or interest to the named individuals – often in the amount of $9,999,999 – in order to have the IRS scrutinize the victim “payee” when those funds were not reported on their own taxes.
  
  Hameed was sentenced to 97 months in a federal prison on charges of bank fraud, conspiracy, corrupt interference with Internal Revenue laws, conversion of government property and creating fictitious obligations.
  
  Young, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy, conversion, bank fraud, creating a false financial bond and corrupt interference, was sentenced in October to 40 months in prison with three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $190,818 in restitution.
  
  Palmer pleaded guilty to conspiracy and bank fraud charges, for which he received one day in prison, three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $147,481 in restitution.

Source: Chester man gets prison for property-fraud scheme.

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(1) According to the Philadelphia office of the U.S. Attorney, the defendants were 'self-proclaimed' sovereign citizens (a group notorious for using this type of 'paper terrorism' to harass law enforcement, court, and government officials).