Home Savers Principals Arrested, Charged with Fraud in Mortgage Theft Scheme

The two principals in the Home Savers Consulting Corporation were charged in Federal District Court in Newark on August 5th with conspiracy to
commit wire fraud.  Legal Services NYC programs including Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A and South Brooklyn Legal Services have represented victims of Home Savers, and long ago brought the firm to the attention of prosecutors.

The pattern of deception alleged in nearly every case is similar:

A longtime owner with lots of equity falls behind on a mortgage and
turns in desperation to Home Savers. Mr. Celestine and Mr. Simon
persuade the homeowner to transfer the deed to a “straw buyer” with
good credit who qualifies for a cash-out refinancing.

Then, it is alleged, they drained the homes of equity. In some
cases in New Jersey, the men applied for multiple mortgages on the same
properties, so as to extract the maximum available equity.

They attended every loan closing and personally paid off
confederates. Then, the F.B.I. alleges, they “kept every penny for
themselves,” depositing the money in various bank accounts, one of
which was titled “Keep What’s Yours, Inc.”

Lawyers with South Brooklyn Legal Services and the Legal Aid Society of New York
have estimated that Home Savers extracted more than $5 million from
their clients in New York City. Joseph Sanders, a lawyer with Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A
in East New York, represents a 69-year-old woman, Waver Brickhouse,
whose house was secretly sold out from under her by the Home Savers
group.

With her lawyer’s help, she regained title recently, and the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which now holds her mortgage,
has agreed to arrange a new 40-year mortgage at a very low interest
rate.

[…] 

In Brooklyn, prosecutors long have known of the accusations against
Home Savers; in fact, Mr. Sanders brought his client, Waver Brickhouse,
to the attention of prosecutors. “A year ago, an assistant district
attorney was sitting here in this office hearing about them,” Mr.
Sanders said.

Read the full New York Times article here.

Earlier Coverage: 

Ms. Brickhouse's story was first featured in the New York Times on March 7th , and the front page of April 14th's Times reported that
housing fraud cases in New York City have largely gone unprosecuted,
despite wiping out tens of millions of
dollars for thousands of predominantly minority homeowners. Attorneys
and clients from South Brooklyn Legal Services, Brooklyn Legal Services
Corporation A, and Staten Island Legal Services (also a program of Legal Services NYC) were featured.