'Mortgage elimination' schemers get prison time
By Glenn Roberts Jr., Thursday, March 20, 2008.An elaborate and bizarre financial fraud scheme that seeded online message boards and Web sites with information about a program that could purportedly erase home owners' mortgage debt has resulted in the sentencing of its two founders.
The Associated Press reported today that Kurt Johnson, 45, of Sunnyvale, Calif., was sentenced to 25 years in prison and Dale Heineman, 48, of Union City, Calif., was sentenced to about 22 years in prison on multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud for their role in the Dorean Group.
Dorean Group was among a group of so-called "mortgage elimination" organizations that wove government conspiracy theories and religious messages into promotional messages for the fraud schemes, which left a trail of shady paperwork and clouded property titles for home owners across several states.
Inman News detailed the twisted tale of the Dorean Group in a 2005 report. Several mortgage and real estate licensees were among the proponents of Dorean's program.
Johnson, who has formerly served prison time for a securities fraud conviction, had been a fugitive before his arrest, and there is still an active blog that claims to be "the blog of Kurt Johnson one of the founders of the whistleblower company called The Dorean Group. This company challenges the illusion of a loan and the confidence game used to give it credence in the American mortgage industry."
According to the AP report: "Prosecutors say as many as 3,500 homeowners and at least 20 lenders in 35 states were victimized."
Maybe not a great time for this Web site's debut: doreangroup.net.
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Submitted by Jillayne Schlicke on March 21, 2008 - 11:19am.
This is fantastic news, Matt. Thanks for the update!
Sometimes I teach at the community college level and years ago, a couple of my students in the title insurance class were thoroughly convinced that this scam was for real. We used it as a case study in the classroom to help the rest of the students recognize what the Dorean Group was trying to do.