|
|
||
Dream Home investors won't be getting their money back any time soon Date published: 12/13/2007
BY CATHY JETT Raymond Peroutka knew he'd have trouble analyzing Metropolitan Grapevine's records even before he walked into its Laurel, Md., headquarters last October. Employees of the company, which a judge has said operated a Ponzi scheme involving mortgage payments, had "spontaneously" quit the day a judge froze its assets, he said. Some were photographed carrying bankers boxes out of the office and loading them into a minivan. "You put those two things together, and realize that there is a significant number of documents that I don't have in my control at present," said Peroutka, who is heading the court-ordered investigation into Metropolitan Grapevine's books. The examination is expected to continue for months as he and the staff at Invotex, a Baltimore firm specializing in financial analysis, re-create company ledgers from old bank statements and canceled checks. While they've located Metropolitan Grapevine account numbers at SunTrust Bank, they're still seeking them for three other banks and a credit union. Money also may be stashed in unknown accounts, Peroutka said. So far, Invotex has turned up about $1 million, including $800,000 in liquid assets, plus motor vehicles and real estate. Included are furnishings at POS Dream Homes of Fredericksburg, a Metropolitan Grapevine subsidiary in Spotsylvania County. MG DiVine Foundation, which bills itself as a charitable arm of the company and also is in Spotsylvania, is not included in the investigation at this time. Peroutka said he has found titles to about 50 cars, sport utility vehicles and vans, and recovered about 30 of them. The list includes Grapevine President Andrew H. Williams' 2003 Cadillac DeVille DTS, his 1998 Corvette and four 2007 Mercedes-Benz S-Class S550s that belonged to subsidiary Billboards4ATMs. "The vehicles were either luxury cars used principally by insiders to either drive themselves or be chauffeured around, or passenger or cargo vans used to bring investors to meetings in the sense of a limo service or to haul around flat-screen monitors in support of Billboards4ATMs or POS Cafes [another Metropolitan Grapevine venture]," Peroutka said. company owes millions Those assets are a mere drop in the bucket compared with the millions that Metropolitan Grapevine owes on mortgages, Peroutka said. Investors and vendors are due more than $100 million just in refunds for money paid in or products supplied.
Date published: 12/13/2007
I went to a meeting and knew immediately that something wasn't right. I knew several people in the program, and listened to them put other people down for not joining. One of the members of the scam said black folks need to stop being so ignorant and start making investments for our future generations to come. This was a very arrogant comment coming from an arrogant person. There are several accounts with hidden money in them.
Isaac and Bethena visited our home that was for sale, in their chauffer driven limo. We entered into a contract with them for the sale of our home. Their agent Vangie Williams w/ Exit Realty professed the Smith's GOOD character and financial stability. After 3 months of BS from the Smith's and Williams and 2 weeks before settlement Sun Trust had the loan in the fraud dept. NO settlement, NO earnest money, and NO recovery for damages came our way. Isaac professed he was blessed, our response...yes, by Satan.
They take his cars and stuff, but is he still out free? He ain't gonna stick around and wait to go to prison, he'll split the country. lock his butt up now, as well as the others involved!
Sounds like you will be able to see their Jail booking photos
soon ,Werstenz. I heard there is a Fed Grand Jury looking into
this :)
Rather than the slime that call themselves "Mortgage Brokers" writing "perfectly legal" loans to folks who may not have even understood the scams they were assuming in the name of home ownership. Hey FLS, time to publish pictures of the Grapevine Scum so we can call them out in public!
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
