A Boca Raton title attorney has been charged with one count of mail fraud after selling a home to a player in a wide-ranging real estate scam that involved dozens of properties in Palm Beach County.
Marni Belkin, an attorney who ran Fortune Title Services in Boca Raton, was charged Nov. 21 with using a bogus loan application to sell a home in suburban Lake Worth to convicted scammer Ralph Michel in 2006. See the charge here.
Belkin closed at least 20 transactions in 2006 and 2007 involving Berry Louidort, Michel, their associates and straw buyers the pair recruited, according to property records.
When mortgage broker Lauren Jasky was sentenced today for her role in the scam, a friend of the Jasky family spoke to the judge and blamed Belkin for Jasky’s involvement in the scam.
“She was introduced to the bad guys by an attorney she trusted, Marni Belkin,” said the family friend, Michael Sonsini.
The fraud ring duped Belkin, her attorney, Marc Nurik, told me in May.
“The title company in this case did not do anything wrong and was not part of the criminal fraud,” he said, adding that Belkin and her employees had no reason to question the deals. In fact, the scam was sophisticated enough that sham borrowers appeared to have hefty bank accounts at Bank of America and six-figure incomes from a Delray Beach insurance agency, federal investigators said.
source: palmbeachpost.com
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Rory Vanucchi
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