F'closure Sale Bid-Rigging Outfit Gets Break On Paying Fines After Guilty Plea For Sherman Act Violations; Aid To Feds Helps Bag 2 Add'l Confederates

In Mobile, Alabama, the Press Register reports:

• A local company will pay a $250,000 fine plus restitution for rigging real estate foreclosure auctions, a federal judge ruled this afternoon. U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade endorsed the deal worked out between prosecutors and attorneys for M&B Builders. Company co-owner Harold H. Buchman, who appeared on behalf of the corporation [], faces 6 months in jail and a $21,141 fine at his sentencing hearing in April.



• Defense attorney Donald Briskman said in an interview that M&B Builders will take a hit. “It’s not a positive effect, but it’s something they are going to work towards satisfying,” he said.



• Buchman, along with his firm and Allen K. French pleaded guilty in October to violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in a scheme dating to May 2001.

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• The company’s fine could have been worse under advisory sentencing guidelines, which laid out a range of more than $300,000 to more than $500,000.



• But attorneys from the U.S. Department of Justice recommended the lower amount because of the company’s cooperation, which officials indicated led to the prosecution of 2 other real estate investors or participated in the fixed auctions.(1)



• In addition to French, Bobby Threlkeld Jr., pleaded guilty in December.

For more, see Mobile company fined $250,000, ordered to pay restitution for fixing foreclosure auctions.

Go here for other posts & links on bid rigging at foreclosure and other real estate-related auctions.

Go here for links to more from the U.S. Justice Department on bid-rigging prosecutions, generally.

(1) The more confederates a 'squealing' defendant can 'throw under the bus', the better the break on the plea deal he can expect a prosecutor to cut (and a judge might approve).

• "When a conspiracy is exposed by an arrest or execution of search warrants, soon-to-be defendants know that the first one to "belly up" and tell what he knows receives the best deal. The pressure is to bargain and bargain early, even if an indictment has not been filed." United States v. Moody, 206 F.3d 609, 617 (6th Cir. 2000) (Wiseman, J., concurring) (referring to the not-uncommon phenomenon some refer to as the 'race to the courthouse' (or 'race to the prosecutor's office') that breaks out among participants in an 'about-to-collapse' criminal conspiracy).