Village of Penland Scam Stopped By North Carolina Attorney General, 100 Million Dollars Taken : The Real Estate Bloggers

Village of Penland Scam Stopped By North Carolina Attorney General, 100 Million Dollars Taken

June 22nd, 2007 • Related • Filed Under

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Village_of_penlandIf you are going to steal, steal big is the motto of a group of developers who took 100 million dollars from investors, committed mortgage fraud, created land that was undevelopable to plan, and are now facing legal challenges.

The village of Penland was a development in Mitchell County land consisting of 1200 acres to house 2000 properties.

The developers used several different schemes to entice consumers to use their credit to purchase lots. In one scenario cited in Cooper’s complaint, the developers told consumers to apply for credit to buy 10 lots for a total of $1.25 million and promised to buy back the lots at the same price within three years. Consumers were told that these ten lots would then be developed and that they would receive $100,000 when each home sold. In other cases, developers asked consumers to buy 20 lots for $2.5 million. The developers promised to buy the lots back in two years and deed consumers an additional 20 lots plus a house, which the companies said they would then rent from the consumer for $280,000 a year as a model home. via CoStar

Talk about having brass cahones. These guys are going to end up in the scammer hall of fame, but hopefully they will get their plaques behind bars.

The developers bought 1,200 acres of Mitchell County land in 2002 and subdivided it into more than 2,000 lots to create the Village of Penland. The developers set up several companies and received “more than $100 million in loan proceeds by marketing the lots to consumer investors,” Cooper said.
Developers named in Cooper’s complaint include Peerless Real Estate Services, Village of Penland, MFSL Landholdings, Communities of Penland, COP Land Holdings, PG Capital Holdings, and West Side Development, all of Spruce Pine. Cooper also named several individuals – three from Florida, one from Georgia and two from North Carolina - as being connected to the companies. via the CITIZEN-TIMES.com

Related posts:
  1. First Guilty Plea In 100 Million Dollar Penland, NC Swindle
  2. NY Attorney General Settles With 2 Title Insurance Companies Over Kickbacks
  3. Ameriquest Settles For 350 Million Dollars For Unfair Lending Practices
  4. Phoenix Proving Grounds Sold for 400 Million Dollars
  5. MetLife Looking to Sell Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town in NYC?



Previous Post: Trinity Place Penthouse Asks 15 Million to Break Boston Condo Price Record | Next Post: Real Estate Appraisals and Appraisers Under The Microscope



 

If you enjoyed this post, we can deliver daily content from the Real Estate Bloggers.

Subscribe using your RSS Reader

Or Get Updates Delivered Daily By E-Mail:


There Are 15 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by Louisville Real Estate on 22 June 2007:

    terrible story. It’s good that the attorney general put a stop to it, but unbelievable that they got away with that much money beforehand.

  2. Comment by Jason Ganz on 23 June 2007:

    Great post! I am gonna share it with my own blog readers at jason.landbrokr.com ! Thanks.

  3. Comment by Rob Headley on 28 June 2007:

    I am one of the people that was victimized by this developer, their names are Tony Porter and Frank “Skip” Amelung. They are very evil people. Has anyone heard of this type of action happeneing before, and specifically what the outcome was?

  4. Comment by Penland Watch on 29 June 2007:

    We’re tracking all we can on this at Penland Watch. It’s a mess, a failed shopping mall in SC is tied in with this deal. I can’t recall anything close to this in the business history of western North Carolina

  5. Comment by Chuck U Farley on 18 July 2007:

    You hillbillies should stick to NASCAR, incest and killing defenseless animals, and of course slavishly voting Republican since those guys reallllly help out the little guy. Stay away from anything that requires a 5th grade education like ‘reading’ or ‘elementary logic.’ Carry on now morons.

  6. Comment by Jerry Hattrick on 15 August 2007:

    Is this Porter fellow any relation to Bill Porter of Porter, Keadle and Moore - UCBI’s audit firm? Don’t they also have a partner named Foster who handles their bank audits? Any relation to the Foster of Atlanta who was also indicted? Surely this is a concidence.

  7. Comment by Auntie Mame on 25 August 2007:

    Re: Chuck U Farley

    I do so hope you are not a Democrat………..although the jackass is the party emblem, we really dont want the ones like you voting. The financially wounded do not need insult added to the injury, many of whom have lost their savings, their credit ratings, even their homes to pay debts frauduently created by Penland Properties tripple mortgaging property of which the purchasers had no knowlege until the ponzi scheme collapsed

    .Alack alas, my bet is you are from the state that has 10,000 last names but only one gene pool.

    I would also be willing to wager that you helped hang or drown Vick’s dogs.

    You go bigot!

    Mame Dennis

  8. Comment by concerned stock holder on 29 August 2007:

    a more detailed account of the fraud in question…

    http://mortgagefraud.squarespace.com/display/ShowJournal?moduleId=78225&categoryId=9370

  9. Comment by Just Curious on 23 October 2007:

    In the pitch, why did these developers direct investors specifically to a few organizations like United Community Banks?

  10. Pingback by First Guilty Plea In 100 Million Dollar Penland, NC Swindle — The Real Estate Bloggers on 7 February 2008:

    […] looks like the big fish has rolled over in the Penland land scam. Neil O’Rourke, ringleader of the  100 million dollar land scam has plead guilty in US […]

  11. Comment by Alan on 8 February 2008:

    http://charlotte.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/2008/ce020608.htm

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Neil O’Rourke, 40, of Apex, North Carolina was charged on Tuesday, February 5, 2008 in a federal bill of information filed in U.S. District Court in Charlotte with one count alleging conspiracy to commit violations of federal law including making a false statement and application in relation to a loan, mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud and securities fraud. O’Rourke has agreed to plead guilty to the charge pursuant to a plea agreement with the government, also filed on February 5, 2008. Neil O’Rourke appeared today, Wednesday, February 6, 2008, in U.S. District Court in Charlotte and formally entered his guilty plea before the court. A date has not yet been set for O’Rourke’s sentencing.

  12. Comment by UnNamed on 16 February 2008:

    I used to work for these guys at the mall in South Carolina. They had promised us the world and now look at them. makes me want to say HA HA HA

  13. Comment by Paul Wilbur on 26 March 2008:

    I’m his brother-in-law …

    he married my sister …

    :(
    paul

  14. Comment by Layla on 18 July 2008:

    It’s such a shame to see developers taking advantage of people.

  15. Comment by gull e bull on 8 August 2008:

    If you are that rich and that stupid…you really don’t desreve to have money. The rich trick the poor out of money every day but they call it consumerism.The people who got tricked probably thought they would clean up. Lol…they got cleaned out. No tears for the wicked.

Post a Response

« Back to text comment