KARMA and KARMA!! Some of the family members are still doing their business as usual after the STEAL!! ONE IS IN JAIL!
Defendants in the lawsuit include the brokerage's president, Hendrix Montecastro; his mother, Helen Montecastro; two notaries; and four other Southern California companies that are allegedly connected to Stonewood and victims through a baffling web of wire transfers.
The alleged scam worked like this, Temecula attorney Richard Ackerman wrote in the lawsuit:
Reiss and other investors with good credit would qualify for multiple homes ---- typically two to five for individuals and as many as 10 for couples ---- in and around Murrieta. Property managers affiliated with Stonewood would then rent out the homes for $1,000 to $2,000 a month. Stonewood and related parties promised to cover the remaining portion of the monthly mortgage payments, but Reiss and several other investors said these promises weren't documented in contracts, and so they had no recourse when the brokerage stopped making those payments last fall, the suit alleges.
"When you have a hot real estate market, when you have an underperforming Wall Street, which was the case (in 2004), you have what we call a perfect fraud storm," said Barry Minkow, a former white-collar convict who runs the Fraud Discovery Institute in San Diego and is advising Ackerman in the lawsuit.
Reiss said she didn't expect the dealings to get into seven figures, but that she quickly got in over her head. When the loan documents for the Falkirk house arrived for her signature, she suddenly found herself applying not only for that mortgage, but also for one on a $600,000 house in the Copper Canyon development in western Murrieta. Later in 2005, the suit alleges, she was duped into taking out loans to buy two other houses near the golf course and another in Copper Canyon.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/01/14/news/californian/23_08_351_13_07.txt
Take the Money and Run
Rebecca and Terry Solomon face charges of fleecing almost $20 million from investors, but not even the feds know where the couple is hiding.
By Martin Kuz
Published: May 30, 2007
Atop one of the tallest points in Tiburon stands
a house that could be dubbed Hearst Castle North. Slender stone columns
guard the front door of the 14,000-square-foot mansion, its tawny
exterior accented by white-frame windows that look upon the Golden Gate
Bridge to the west and San Pablo Bay to the east. A swimming pool,
tennis court, and two-story guest house fill out the two-acre grounds,
garnished with hanging flower gardens and topiary pine trees, their
branches swirled like soft-serve ice cream.
The Solomons wallowed in gilded excess, renting a Tiburon mansion for $20,000 a month.
Some saw Terry as his wife's "lapdog."
The Solomons' flamboyance seduced people who probably should have known better.
Rebecca supplied the couple's financial brawn.
