Fiduciary Illegally Doctored Land Docs To Hock 101 Acres Of Fla. Land Held In Trust To Pocket $17M, Say 52 Investor/Beneficiaries Now Facing F'closure

In Cape Coral, Florida, WINK News reports:

• Investors in the Pine Island 101 Land Trust call for action after finding out their land was mortgaged and is in foreclosure. They say the land was worth millions of dollars and want to know why the trustee of the land, Cape Coral realtor Greg Eagle, mortgaged the land in the first place.



• The Pine Island 101 Land trust is 101 acres of property near the German American Club on Pine Island Road in Cape Coral. It is owned by 52 investors who bought the property together in the 1990s for 3 million dollars.

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• Cape Coral Realtor Greg Eagle arranged the Pine Island 101 deal and is the trustee for the property. Investors told WINK NEWS Eagle's reputation for managing these land trusts made this property attractive.



• Investors told us they were surprised to receive a letter in April of 2011 telling them the property had been mortgaged and was in foreclosure. In that letter to the 52 investors, Eagle apologizes for using the property as collateral to get a 17 million dollar loan for a project to bring a private homeland security training facility Florida. The bank who issued the loan, First National Bank of Pennsylvania, filed for foreclosure on the property after not receiving payment.



• Dr. Charles Curtis, one of the investors in the property, said the property wasn't to be mortgaged. "We have a trustee for the property and it had been paid off. So we as a group owned it," said Curtis. The original trust obtained by Wink News shows 52 people with a percentage interest in the property.



• However, Wink News has uncovered court documents challenging the foreclosure showing Eagle signed and had notorized a document saying he had full ownership of the property and permission to mortgage it. "It's a pretty serious case," said Attorney Michael Whitt, the attorney challenging the foreclosure on behalf of one of the investors, "I mean what we have uncovered the trail of documents and and doctored documents. It's a pretty scary thing what has happened."



• Whitt says many of the beneficiaries or investors in the trust invested their life savings into the trust. He also says the property is still very valuable. The most recent appraisal done in December of 2008 valued the land at 22 million dollars.



• CALL FOR ACTION contacted Greg Eagle. He declined our request to go on camera saying he is currently out of town. However, over the phone he told us as trustee he feels he did have the right to mortgage the property. He told WINK NEWS that he signed that affidavit to simplify the process of getting the loan.

For more, see Investors say land trust wrongfully mortgaged.