Carl Cole and David Crisp used their Bakersfield realty and mortgage companies to cheat lenders out of millions of dollars, according to an accusation filed Monday by the California Department of Real Estate.
Crisp and Cole used employees and relatives as ''straw buyers'' who took out huge loans to buy property for Crisp and Cole, the accusation says. Many of the people who took out the loans have defaulted, resulting in profits for Crisp and Cole and losses for mortgage companies.
The allegations are part of a case compiled over the last several months, DRE Spokesman Tom Pool told KGET News. If proved to an administrative law judge, the allegations could result in the suspension, revocation or other action against the real estate licenses of the accused.
The accusation filed Monday, names Crisp; Cole; their now-defunct realty company, Crisp & Cole; their now-defunct mortgage company, Tower Lending; real estate broker Sneha Mohammadi; real estate agents Jill Louise Penheiro and Robinson Dinh Nguyen.
It is not a criminal charge. It is an administrative procedure that can have consequences only for a person or business that holds a DRE license. Although it outlines transactions that allegedly involved people who are not real estate agents, it does not accuse them.
Calls to the people named in the accusations were not returned Monday afternoon.
The official document that makes the charges is called an accusation.
The accusation says Cole and Crisp repeatedly borrowed huge sums of money or helped others get huge loans by providing false information on applications.
In one case, the accusation says, Crisp paid Mohammadi - - a Crisp & Cole employee - - to take out a $1.1 million mortgage on a house in Seven Oaks. Then, within two months, Crisp helped his mother-in-law get a $1.7 million loan to buy the house, the accusation says. To get the loan, the accusation says, Crisp, Cole, Crisp & Cole and Tower Lending, helped the mother-in-law, Leslie Sluga, claim she was owner of a local business. She was not, the filing says.
In another case, the accused people helped Leslie Sluga get loans for $375,000 to buy a house in southwest Bakersfield by ''representing'' to the mortgage company that Sluga worked for Crisp & Cole Realty, the accusation says. That just wasn't true, the allegation says.
In yet another case, the accusation says, Cole and Crisp and their companies helped Crisp's wife, Jennifer, get loans for $659,000 on one house and $320,000 on another. She got the loans from separate mortgage companies by applying for them at the same time and not telling either lender about the other application, the accusation says.
That's the same thing that happened in another case, when Crisp borrowed $1.45 million on one house and $1.06 million on another at the same time without telling either mortgage company, the accusation says.
All that amounts to ''substantial misrepresentation of material facts, fraud and dishonest dealings,'' the state said.
Here's the accusation: http://www.kget.com/media/news/1/5/5/155502d6-e1c5-4cf0-bf9b-a75c11a9f7bd/state_vs_cc_01.pdf
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-Kiyoshi
