Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
P. O. Box 3711
204 Broad Street
Martinsville, Virginia 24115
276-638-8801
Toll Free: 800-234-6575
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Sunday, October 1, 2006
By DEBBIE HALL - Bulletin Staff Writer
Clara Pilson knows the process of obtaining a mortgage, but did not realize she was applying for loans totaling more than $1 million when she joined a local real estate investment group.
Her involvement in the alleged scam “makes you feel real stupid,” said Pilson, of Henry County.
For instance, “I know when you’re buying a house, you’re supposed to have an attorney and a notary (public) there,” she said. But because this was a group venture, she thought it operated differently.
The alleged real estate scam, which involves area residents who claim they were duped into buying properties in Indiana, began innocently enough through word of mouth in a beauty shop operated by Sharon Penn in the home she shares with her mother, Beulah Penn, Pilson and other reports have said.
“This was not a ‘get rich quick scheme,’” Pilson said. Rather, it was an invitation from someone she considered a friend.
Pilson said she had known Sharon Penn for more than a year “and after a year, you talk to people” and feel you get to know them.
Pilson joined the “real estate investment group” only after a two-year courtship to attract her. During that time when she had her hair done by Penn, Pilson said she was told that various beauty shop patrons were members of the investment group, as were as others in the community.
She was told she would make money by joining the group when properties it purchased were rented and group members shared in the rental proceeds.
Pilson said Sharon Penn, who is the only local defendant in a civil suit over the alleged scam filed by Countrywide Home Loans, told about her brother, Robert Penn of Indiana.
He also is named as a defendant in the civil suit, along with Tamara Scott-Penn, Robert Pollard, Amy Pollard, Land Economics LLC, Brown Funding Inc., Showhomes Property Management LLC, EU Group LLC, the Griffin Group LLC, People’s Trust Mortgage LLC, Ace Appraisal Service Inc., Susan L. Ruhana, Brian Carrington and Frederick W. Bauter.
Pilson said she was told Robert Penn “was doing very well with selling properties” for the local real estate group.
“I asked, ‘What do you have to invest,’” Pilson said, and was told “You don’t” invest any money.
Pilson also asked, “Will this bother our credit?”
She was assured that “your credit rating won’t be bothered. It (credit rating) will only increase.”
Apparently, the only prerequisite for joining the group was a good credit rating, something Pilson and her husband, Rudy Pilson, had.
“We’re not what you would call ‘rich,’ but we pay our bills on time. We always have,” said Clara Pilson, who works part-time. Rudy Pilson, who also is a minister, has said he lives on disability income.
“We don’t struggle, but would like to have more than (just) enough so we can help other people,” Clara Pilson said.
Informational meetings of group members held in places such as a local motel also gave credence to the investment group and its members, Pilson said.
Pilson attended one of the meetings and got answers to her questions about the group. Still, she struggled with whether to join and also prayed about it.
After deciding to take part in the group, Pilson said the process was as easy as providing personal information for credit checks.
“If you didn’t have good credit, they didn’t fool with you,” she said of organizers.
After establishing a participant’s credit rating, “then (the organizers) would call and say they had some property they were buying,” Pilson said.
Organizers “would tell us they had a group of properties that had to be signed for and we were told to come in and sign that day or we’d mess up the whole group,” she added.
Papers were signed in a small office, near the in-home beauty salon, Pilson said.
Participants in the alleged scheme entered the office individually because of a “privacy thing,” Pilson said they were told. Organizers also were in the room to rush participants through the signing process, she said.
Areas which required signatures were highlighted before she arrived, Pilson said, and “if you tried to read” the documents, organizers “would hurry you up. They would say ‘Hurry up, hurry up’” and push participants to finish signing the documents without reading them or having any understanding of what they had signed.
Other group members said “they were called at 10 o’clock at night and told they had to get the papers signed” so the documents could be rushed to Indiana, Pilson said she was told.
After documents were signed, an organizer “supposedly” rushed the documents to Fed Ex for immediate shipment to Indiana, Pilson said.
She asked for copies of the papers she had signed, “and we were told we would get them but we never did,” she said. “The only time I got mine was when I called the mortgage company and they sent me a copy.”
But that was late last year, after “I found out in December how bad it was,” Pilson said.
Sadly, it confirmed her hunch.
About six months after she joined the investment group, she started getting bills from mortgage companies demanding payment of unpaid balances.
Pilson said she immediately called her local contacts and was assured “‘we’ll take care of it.’” However, the bills kept coming and Pilson spent a lot of time on the telephone.
“I’d call them (group organizers) sometimes two or three times a day,” Pilson said, and tell them “you’re not taking care of this ... You’re not making these payments.”
It was some time in those conversations that Pilson first heard the name “Showhomes Property Management,” which also is named in the Countrywide suit. Pilson was told Showhomes managed the rental properties, including making the mortgage payments.
But the more Pilson found out about the way the local real estate group worked, the less she understood, she said.
So in February, the Pilsons headed to Indiana to try and unravel the mystery.
Recently, Pilson found that mortgages on properties there in her name total more than $1 million and are part of an elaborate house-flipping scheme which relied on an array of appraisers, title companies and the like.
In the alleged scheme, houses were bought for inflated prices, sometimes more than double market value, according to Pilson and the Countrywide lawsuit. Organizers of the scheme allegedly pocketed the difference between what was paid for a property and the amount mortgaged, they stated.
Mortgages were secured by using names and credit standing of the Pilsons and others, as well as falsified information on mortgage applications, Pilson and the Countrywide lawsuit state.
Since her troubles began, Pilson has urged others not to join the group.
“It isn’t worth it,” she said she has told them.
She also wonders why she got involved, even after praying about her decision.
Rudy Pilson offered some solace when he told her that “God spoke to me and said ‘you did this because somebody needed to get into it that would stand up’” for alleged victims, Clara Pilson said.
She also has made peace with her involvement in the alleged scam after feeling “God spoke to me and said ‘You did what you were supposed to do. Now, it’s in my hands. Just move on.’” |
| |
|
|
.jpg)
.jpg)
