Foreclosure Rescue Racket Requiring Homeowners To Sign Over Deeds Into Trust Ends In Guilty Pleas For Pair

From the Office of the Santa Barbara County, California District Attorney:

• Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce E. Dudley announced the plea [] of Franklin David Marquez and Sisy Aragon. Franklin David Marquez pled to one felony count of violating Civil Code section 2945.4, commonly known as Loan Modification Fraud/Foreclosure Assistance Fraud.
  
  Sisy Aragon pled to one misdemeanor count of Penal Code section 32, Accessory After The Fact. Aragon was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to make restitution in the sum of $27,500. Marquez will be sentenced on November 29, 2012.
  
  The foreclosure scheme associated with these subjects involves contacting homeowners in distress and offering to save their homes from foreclosure. To do so they require Quit Claim Deeds and Power of Attorney documents.
  
  They tell the homeowner that for a fee, usually in the thousands of dollars, their homes will be put into a trust. They tell the victim they no longer need to make house payments but instead make payments directly to the trust or company managing the trust. The victims are told that attorneys are aggressively working with the banks to get their homes back. These companies then file documents that potentially cloud title and slow down the foreclosure process and/or file bankruptcies to slow down the process.(1)
  
  While the foreclosure process is stalled, the victims continue to make payments to these companies and are assured that their homes are actually being rescued. Eventually the lenders successfully foreclose on the property but not before the victims/homeowners have paid thousands of dollars to the fraudulent companies.

For the Santa Barbara District Attorney press release, see People v. Franklin Marquez and Sisy Aragon: Loan Modification/Foreclosure.

(1) For what sounds like a similar racket that may be going on in Florida (but currently being prosecuted by the state attorney general only as a civil - not criminal - matter), see:

1. Homeowners Lament Handing Over Their Deeds & Cash To Now-Shut Down Outfits That Peddled Programs Purporting To Eliminate Mortgages By Filing 'Quiet Title' Lawsuits
2. Florida AG Files Civil Suits Tagging So-Called Land Trusts Peddling Schemes Purportedly Designed To Make Underwater Mortgages Disappear,
3. Mortgage Cancellation Rackets That File Suits To Obtain Default Judgments To Wipe Out Banksters' Liens Gain Steam In Florida,
4. Title Insurers Red-Flag Homes w/ Quiet Title Suits In Ownership History; Add'l Scrutiny Required As One R/E Operator Peddles Mortgage Elimination Plan.