Aurora man indicted in real estate fraud

John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 25, 2007 at midnight

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A federal grand jury in Denver has indicted an Aurora man for alleged felony counts of bank fraud, fraud by wire, radio or TV, and money laundering.

The charges against James S. Taylor involves more than $4.5 million in "a scheme to defraud issuers of residential home loans," in Aurora, Littleton and Lakewood.

Taylor, who either controlled or was associated with companies called Dingo Trading Limtied, Amerimax Realty Inc., JJ Real Estate Investments Inc. and AJG Construction, according to the indictment, prepared loan applications using false information.

Taylor used $37,000 of the money he made in the schemes to buy a 1996 Ferrari 355 GTS from Stewart's Ferrari of Denver. If convicted of one or more of the allegations, the U.S. Attorney General's office is seeking to confiscate his assets, which includes a home at 21702 Saddle Rock Golf Club in Aurora and a 2002 Mercedes Benz CLKI 3200. Taylor faces the forfeiture of a "sum of money equal to $960,582.44," according to the 12-page indictment.

The loan applications were made under a variety of names, including David Jenkins, Ahmed Alazawy (also known as Ahmed Al Azawy), Sean Walters, Scott Barber, Hussain Oda Alhachami, Juana Escobedo, Anthony Mulie, Brandon Kortgard, Santiago Pineda, Robin Osterlund, Alaa Maliky, Paula Jenkins, Tisha McCurdy, Laurie Benson, Curtis Smith, Don Mason, Ali Al Taei, Carolyn Barber, Mohammed Ismail and Gosham Al Mosawi, according to the indictment.

"These applications contained materially false and fraudulent representations, including representations about the applicants' employment, income and intent to use the homes secured by the loans as their primary residences," according to the indictment. Lenders that were defrauded include First Franklin Financial Long Beach Mortgage Co., Fort Worth Mortgage, First National Bank of Arizona, Accredited Home Loans, Countrywide Home Loans, Express Capital Lending and Fremont Investment & Loan, according to the indictment.

This marks one of the largest cases investigated by the Denver office of the IRS-Criminal Investigation Division.

Terry L. Stuart, the special agent in charge of the division, didn't comment directly on the Taylor case, but said that, "Every year, fraudulent real estate schemes victimize individuals and businesses from many walks of life, including struggling low-income families lured into home loans they can't afford, legitimate lenders saddled with over-inflated mortgages and honest real estate investors fleeced out of their investment dollars. Through federal tax fraud investigations and money laundering charges, the Internal Revenue Service is playing a key role in the fight against real estate fraud" said Stuart.

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