First Guilty Plea In 100 Million Dollar Penland, NC Swindle
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It 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 District Court on the condition that he will testify against others charged in the probe.
This is one of the largest frauds committed in the United States and has the potential to bring many of the participants down. The only thing that I dislike is the leniency that O’Rourke has received. Come on, he is the leader of a 100 million dollar theft ring and only has to pay a 250,000 fine and a maximum of 5 years in jail?
I do hope the hurt parties leave him and his cohorts penniless through the civil courts after their scamming and destroying the name of Penland.
Neil O’Rourke, 40, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Charlotte to a single count of conspiracy involving charges of securities, mail, wire and bank fraud.
O’Rourke is a former president of Peerless Real Estate Group, which oversaw a development in Mitchell County called The Village of Penland, located about an hour northeast of Asheville.
When the project was halted in May, it left dozens of individual investors from the Triangle and throughout the country owing banks more than $100 million and it triggered three lawsuits.
O’Rourke, an attorney in private practice before he joined Peerless, agreed to cooperate with federal investigators as they seek additional indictments against others in the company.
No date was set for his sentencing. He faces a maximum of five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.
“In a case like this, the government is trying to get information that is credible and useful in nailing somebody higher up the line,” said James Cox, a securities law expert at Duke University. “So you try to reach a plea with someone as high up as you can. It sounds like they hit the target squarely here,” Cox said. via Charlotte Observer
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Comment by Penland Watch on 9 February 2008:
The commentary added by the blogger is extremely misleading. The real “leaders”, “big fish”, and “ringleaders” of the Penland debacle are Frank Amelung, Richard Amelung and Anthony Porter, all named in the original NC atty general complaint. The govt knows this and that why they were seeking this plea — as it should help their case against those “higher up the the line.”