an Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> About his recent financial failures...I would plop
> it as a matter of the crazy way money makes people
> act.
> My mom also made a bad real estate investment
> right before the housing crash, and she's still a
> decent person.
Was your Mom accused of real estate fraud? There is a world of difference between buying a house that goes down in value and what transpired in NC.
Just in case anyone has a short memory - from the Washington Examiner:
Two Fairfax County public school principals and dozens of teachers they recruited into a North Carolina land deal have been caught up in what could be the largest mortgage fraud case in state history, according to court documents.
A federal grand jury in North Carolina has been probing the massive fraud case. Teachers were left with worthless land and gaping holes in their bank accounts, according to lawsuits growing out of the case.
Daniel Meier, principal at Fairfax's Robinson Secondary School, and his brother Thomas Meier, principal at McLean's Langley High School, worked with a former student, Mark Dain, to motivate investors to pay artificially inflated prices for land in coastal North Carolina at the height of the housing boom, according to a lawsuit brought by the investors. Dain was a co-founder of the now defunct Total Realty Management, based out of Woodbridge.
The company purchased subdivisions worth approximately $150,000 before turning around and selling them for double and sometimes triple that figure, according to the complaint. The Meier brothers allegedly offered "testimonials" on the scheme's success before crowds that often included teachers and colleagues. The sales were manipulated through "sham transactions" and multiple misrepresentations, according to the complaint filed in January in a Virginia federal court.
Read more at the Washington Examiner:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime-and-punishment/teachers-principals-caught-fraud-case#ixzz1Yh32lI1c