Hat tip to Kelly Bennett, who has been following this swindler’s story – another going to jail!
James McConville, the man at the center of our 2009 investigation into a massive real estate scam in San Diego County, is expected to appear in court next week and plead guilty to federal fraud charges. The plea comes three years after he orchestrated the purchase of scores of North County condos and nearly immediately let them fall into foreclosure, pocketing close to $13 million in the meantime.
The Department of Justice’s Victim Notification System sent a notice of the expected guilty plea this month. Andy Narraway, an investor who claimed he lost his life savings to McConville, forwarded us the notice.
Federal prosecutors charged McConville with money laundering and wire fraud last May. The charges related to a scheme that stretched across California, involving hundreds of condos bought with the help of so-called straw buyers who rented the man their identities so he could get more mortgages from banks.
In the case of the more than 80 condos we looked at in Escondido and San Marcos, McConville’s team obtained mortgages for far more than the units would have sold for otherwise and pocketed more than $100,000 per condo under the guise of “marketing fees” before letting them fall into foreclosure.
The feds found the fugitive McConville last June hiding in Bakersfield with three large rolls of cash in his pockets.
Several other defendants in the scheme have pleaded guilty, including the escrow officer who admitted she created two versions of the official transaction papers, one the banks would see that didn’t show McConville’s take, and one that he and the sellers saw.
By last March, we estimated the federal government’s mortgage companies, which had purchased these shaky loans, had already lost upwards of $7.8 million. McConville’s operation had been going for several years by the time he bought the San Diego County units, but these deals were especially egregious because they slipped through the cracks in 2008, when banks and governments had decried the excesses of the housing boom and vowed to strengthen their oversight.
The straw buyers’ credit scores were ruined when McConville stopped paying the mortgages on the units in their name, and the ones involved in the San Diego deal said they were never paid the $10,000 per unit he promised them in exchange for their signatures.
McConville is expected to appear July 20, about 1:30 p.m. in Oakland to enter his guilty plea.
And yet, the Man with the Orange Skin (aka Orange-zillo) continues to enjoy eating his surf and turf on a daily basis.
I cracked up w/ your title, Jim, when I saw Mc-Con-ville’s last name. It immediately reminded me of a guy who broke my heart right after college. His last name was Farewell…
I love this part:
“The feds found the fugitive McConville last June hiding in Bakersfield with three large rolls of cash in his pockets”
Gee let me see , The feds are after me. I have millions, I could be living the high life on some island or foreign country under a alais- yet Im hiding out in Bakersfield.
It never seems to amaze me these idiots who have these crazy illegal schemes dont really have a escape plan.
I know greed makes normal people do dumb things, but anyone who agrees to take out a mortgage for someone they just met in return for a promise of payment isn’t thinking very hard. You have no guarantee or leverage, nor can you expect any because you know what you’re doing is illegal.
So many scams happen because the ‘victim’ has no recourse because they’re fully aware of the illegality of their role. But the promise of big money makes that thought go away.
You’d think only someone desperate for money would agree to something like this, but apparently a lot of people have a price.
I don’t mean to rub it in my last post, but just warn people that these scams are still around and always will be. I see ads just like the one he posted regularly – “Make $50,000 in 3-4 months for 10 hours of work- NO Joke.”
Well sure, I can guarantee you many ways to make $100,000 in just 2 hours of work. All it takes is a pen, a paper, and a baseball cap. They’ll provide the sack for you if you ask nicely.