Sunday, May 20, 2018

DOJ: $300 Million Real Estate Fraud Assets Seized In Rem Of Chattels

I am enjoying the way the DOJ is giving prominent accolades to the U.S. Assistant Attorneys on the filings but I have to say, this particular asset forfeiture filing has answered the time honored question of how a house can show up for court in a quiet title case.

From Latin, "against a thing."  Concerning the status of a particular piece of property.
For instance, in-rem jurisdiction refers to the power of a court over an item of real or personal property.  The "thing" over which the court has power may be a piece of land or even a marriage.  Thus, a court with only in-rem jurisdiction may terminate a marriage or declare who owns a piece of land.  In-rem jurisdiction is based on the location of the property and enforcement follows property rather than person.

That is correct, the same law of chattels for child welfare is also applied to real estate, because they, or rather, the deeds are treated the same as birth registers.

The Detroit Land Bank Authority filed pseudo...no, let us call it what it is....fake quiet title actions in Columbo's court to steal Detroit properties through Corporate Shape Shifters where it served the addresses as defendants because it is difficult for a residential, or even commerical, building to enter a courtroom.

Logistics, you know.

The only difference is that the Detroit Land Bank Authority, having never incorporated, never verified that the quiet title actions of the properties were in Rem.


Former CEO, CFO and Director of Health Care Services Company Charged in Elaborate $300 Million Investment Fraud Scheme

Defendants Allegedly Inflated Company’s Value and Revenue to Defraud Investors

The former CEO, CFO and an executive director of a publicly traded health care services company were charged today with allegedly orchestrating a widespread scheme to defraud investors and others out of hundreds of millions of dollars in connection with a merger transaction designed to convert the company into a private entity, Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced today. 
Parmjit “Paul” Parmar, 48, of Colts Neck, New Jersey; Sotirios “Sam” Zaharis, 51, of Weehawken, New Jersey; and Ravi Chivukula, 44, of Freehold, New Jersey, are charged by complaint with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of securities fraud.  FBI special agents arrested Parmar earlier today near his home.  He is scheduled to appear this afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Leda Dunn Wettre in Newark, New Jersey federal court. Chivukula and Zaharis remain at large.      
According to the complaint unsealed today, from May 2015 through September 2017, the defendants orchestrated an elaborate scheme to defraud a private investment firm and others out of hundreds of millions of dollars in connection with the funding of a transaction to take private a company (Company A) traded publicly on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market.  To fund the transaction, the private investment firm put up approximately $82 million in equity, and a consortium of financial institutions provided another approximately $130 million in debt.  The scheme allegedly utilized fraudulent methods to grossly inflate the value of Company A and trick others into believing that Company A was worth substantially more than its actual value.
The complaint alleges that to present a positive picture of the company’s financial wealth, the defendants allegedly sought to raise tens of millions of dollars in the public markets, purportedly to fund Company A’s acquisitions of various operating subsidiaries.  In reality, a number of those entities either did not exist or had only a fraction of the operating income attributed to them.  The conspirators allegedly funneled the proceeds of these secondary offerings through bank accounts they controlled and used the money for a variety of purposes that had nothing to do with acquiring the purported targets.  The money was instead used to make it appear as if the operating subsidiary had substantial customer revenue when, in fact, the funds were simply transfers of the money that had been raised in the secondary offering.  The defendants allegedly went to great lengths to make it appear that these funds were revenue, concocting phony customers and altering bank statements to make it appear as if the funds were coming from customers.     
The conspirators allegedly:
  • Created fictitious operating companies that Company A purportedly acquired in sham acquisitions;
  • Falsified and fabricated bank records of subsidiary entities in order to generate a phony picture of Company A’s revenue streams;
  • Generated fake income streams and phony customers of Company A and its subsidiaries; and
  • Made material misrepresentations and omissions to the private investment firm and others.
The defendants’ alleged actions caused the private investment firm and others to value Company A at more than $300 million for purposes of financing the transaction to take the company private.     
The alleged scheme was uncovered around September 2017, when the defendants resigned from their positions with Company A or were terminated.  On March 16, 2018, Company A and numerous of its affiliated entities filed for bankruptcy, attributing the company’s financial demise, in large part, to the alleged fraud scheme.
Separately, the United States filed a separate civil complaint today seeking forfeiture of four properties that Parmar owns or controls, including a house on Colt’s Neck and three apartments in New York City.  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil complaint today against Parmar, Zaharis and Chivukula.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI Newark Field office with the assistance of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s New York Regional Office.
The government is represented by Trial Attorney Leslie Lehnert of the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, Chief Paul A. Murphy of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Economic Crimes Unit, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas P. Grippo of the Economic Crimes Unit, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Devlin of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey’s Asset Recovery Money Laundering Unit.
The charges and allegations contained in the complaint are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

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