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The real estate investor who teamed up with a former Fox & Friends host to sell hundreds of dilapidated homes to other investors in a fraudulent scheme was sentenced to serve 41 months in prison on Tuesday, nearly three years after pleading guilty.
Bert Whalen, 50, and his then-business partner, Clayton Morris, sold hundreds of homes in the Indianapolis area between 2017 and 2019, the Indy Star reported last year. Lawsuits and an FBI investigation followed soon after.
Whalen was accused of orchestrating a Ponzi scheme and was indicted in New Jersey in November 2019. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy two years later as part of a plea deal with prosecutors.
According to the Indy Star’s reporting, investors were lured to give money to Whalen and Morris, expecting it to be used to buy and rehabilitate homes that would then be rented out to tenants. The investors were seeking to grow their net worths through the arrangement.
Some said they were given signed leases and even money purportedly from monthly payments from renters, but later found out their homes were in total disrepair, vacant and that taxes were in arrears.
Whalen continued to victimize people in the same way while awaiting sentencing under the alias Herb Francis, according to a complaint filed last May by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita.
Some of the investors who were defrauded by Whalen and Morris’ scheme noted that Whalen remained free for years after he pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy.
Whalen’s sentencing was mysteriously delayed eight times, which kept him free from prison before he was ultimately sentenced this week. He was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and serve another three years on supervised release once he’s freed from prison.
Court dockets show investors across the country targeted Whalen and Morris with lawsuits, saying they were attracted to invest after watching Morris’ popular YouTube videos and podcasts about real estate investing.
“Defendants did not evaluate whether their investors were sophisticated, accredited, or otherwise had any particular financial acumen or experience in real estate investing,” one investor wrote in a lawsuit targeting both Morris and Whalen. “Instead, they appear to have targeted inexperienced investors, many of whom ultimately lost large proportions of their savings or retirement funds in the scheme.”
Morris, who has not been accused of a crime, moved with his family to Portugal in 2019 as lawsuits piled up before recently moving back to the U.S., the Indy Star reported.
He still operates his real estate investment firm, Morris Invest, pitching rental properties to investors who will work with him. Morris hasn’t been charged with any crimes and appears to have settled previous lawsuits filed against him. But that might not be the end.
One investor told the Indy Star he was contacted by the FBI sometime in 2023 to talk about Morris. The investor, Brian Freeman, said he bought a house through Morris and received rent checks for five months. He was later informed by an inspector in Indianapolis that the home was vacant and had a rat infestation.
