Two Georgia real estate operators were handed down stiff prison sentences in a case involving a mortgage-flipping scheme, according to an announcement from Georgia’s Attorney General. Kenneth Bradford and Jo Ellen Bryant received respective prison sentences of 12 and 10 years’ for three counts of felony theft by taking, and both sentences will be followed by at least 18 years’ probation. The two were convicted in the DeKalb County Superior Court on March 31st.
The Attorney General said the pair, who held themselves out as a married couple under the fictitious names of Ken and CJ Taylor, owned a company called Prime Plus which bought and sold residential property to individuals seeking to own “investment” property. Investors were promised full property management services, including the finding of tenants that were to include business people and athletes .
Targeting unsophisticated individuals with good credit, Bradford and Bryant allegedly created false, fictitious and fraudulent mortgage packages in order to secure loans from secondary market lenders through a mortgage company, Great Oaks Properties.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Teresa Harriss — the mortgage broker who facilitated their crimes — has pled guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison.
In ‘flip’ transactions, Prime Plus would close on a home purchased at a price ranging from $190,000 to $230,000, then minutes later, close on the sale of the same property at a price of $350,000 to $380,000.
The pair left Georgia in Spring 1997, at which point investors discovered they were left with homes that never had tenants, had become run-down and were grotesquely overvalued, according to the state. Most of the homes went into foreclosure, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses and leaving the subdivision decimated. The state said that homes in the area have become havens for drug dealers and prostitution rings.
According to the Georgia Real Estate Fraud Prevention and Awareness Coalition, whose membership includes mortgage insurers, mortgage brokers, mortgage bankers and appraisers, it was revealed during sentencing that Bradford previously escaped from a California prison. In addition, he has an extensive history of convictions for swindles stretching back to 1993 and was recently arrested in Louisiana for mortgage fraud. That announcement went on to say that Bryant was given a week of monitored release in order to make arrangements for the care of her children.
