Property Management Owners Head To Prison For $2M Ripoff From HOAs Affecting 700+ Condo Owners; Some Lost Homes To Foreclosure

In Chicago, Illinois, the Chicago Tribune reports:

• The former co-owner of a Chicago property management company was sentenced Tuesday to three years in federal prison for stealing about $2 million from condominium associations.



• Jay Strauss, 76, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud in November after his business partner, Donald Doering, 64, agreed to a 51-month sentence as part of a deal to cooperate with prosecutors. A date for Doering's sentencing hearing has yet to be scheduled.



• The two men started Regent Realty Group Inc. in 1988, and it grew to manage 48 condo properties, mostly on Chicago's North Side. From 2005 until January 2008, when they closed the company, Strauss and Doering took assessment fees meant for the maintenance of the properties to pay off personal debt they had accumulated on a real estate project, according to the plea agreement.



• They covered up their theft by creating false monthly financial reports for the accounts of each property managed, court papers said. The U.S. attorney's office in Chicago said in court documents that more than 700 condo owners were hurt and that some victims lost their homes to foreclosure.

For more, see Man gets 3 years for defrauding condo associations (Jay Strauss, who co-owned Regent Realty Group, will go to federal prison for stealing about $2 million from 48 condo associations, mostly on Chicago's North Side).