- The grand jury indicted Maurice Bates for wire fraud in the nick of time, enabling a trial jury Wednesday to find him guilty of defrauding lenders out of more than $1 million.
- The indictment was filed Dec. 6, 2011, only seven days before the statute of limitations would’ve expired. Judge Richard Smoak ruled Wednesday that a check that was cashed on Dec. 13, 2006 constituted the final act of a conspiracy to commit wire fraud after Bates’ attorney, Tonya Higgins, rested her case without calling a single witness and asked Smoak to dismiss the charge.
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- [The conspirators] defaulted on every loan they received. Most of the homes they bought have been foreclosed on, and the rest are only waiting for a final judgment. In a couple cases, the sellers agreed to loan money to the buyers and were named as defendants in foreclosure proceedings.
- Marie Beamer is one of them. The 81-year-old Beamer took the witness stand Wednesday to tell the jury how her Realtor convinced her that it was a good idea to loan $100,000 to the group who bought her home in Bay Point in 2006.
- She expected to receive $733 every month, but after about six months the checks stopped showing up.
- Littleton asked Beamer what she would’ve done with that $100,000. “I would have saved it for retirement and then I wouldn’t have work today,” Beamer replied. After she said it, a juror looked down at the floor and shook her head.
- Of the $100,000 Beamer lost, $83,000 ended up in a bank account that Bates controlled. Add that to the money skimmed off the bank loan, and Bates cleared nearly $200,000 from the deal to buy Beamer’s house. “Cases like this are about people like Marie Beamer,” [Assistant U.S. Attorney Gayle] Littleton told the jury.
For the story, see Man guilty of fraud (He faces up to 20 years in prison for mortgage scam).
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