The High Cost $ of Betrayal
“I never thought to conduct a deed search on myself as the buyer or seller after learning of Ted’s legal problems. Ted was convicted of the most elementary real estate fraud, buying distressed properties cheaply and selling them at a sustantial profit, often within days, to a straw buyer and then defaulting on the loan and pocketing the profit.”
Excerpt from:
The People In My House
My life was upended when I learned my husband had committed mortgage fraud and subsquently went to prison. Adding insult to injury was finding out a decade later he forged my name on real estate deeds with people I couldn’t pick out of a line up of two. It’s a viseral pain knowing the person who was supposed to protect me deliberately put me in harm’s way.
Examining the deeds, it appears I helped facilitate the fraud. My husband signed my nickname and not my legal name on two of the deeds. The notary seals and signatures acknowledge that I signed the documents, but I didn’t. I wasn’t there. When I confronted one of the notary’s in 2014, (I’ll call her Bridgett Heavrin Yochum - (ASK Title Co), because that’s her name), she insisted that someone must have impersonated me. I told her that’s impossible because it’s my ex-husband’s signature. As refernced in my book, she said during our phone conversation that someone must have stolen her seal and forged her signature. That wasn’t true as an attorney directed me to check the notary signature file book. I did. It was a spot-on match. Ms. Yochum would no longer speak with me after I called her back and revealed my findings. Shocking, (sarcasm intended).
Since the publication of The People In My House in 2021, Ms. Yochum has remained silent. The attorney, David Haick, who prepared the deeds that contain my forged nickname, now claims, after seven years of being aware of said deeds in question, (I called him in 2014 to inquire about the forgeries and contacted him again in 2017), that his name was forged on two deeds, (but not the deeds where my name is forged), with the same notary, Bridgett Heavrin Yochum, (how interesting?). He also falsley claims that me and my co-author knew his name was forged and didn’t disclose that fact in our book. We would have no idea if his name was forged on public deeds and as an attorney he certainly knows that too. To quote Monroe Jett, owner of Jett Title, and former banker, trained by the FBI and the local police in identifying fraudulent personnel types, thier personal and financial situations, and internal controls for fraud prevention. “It is 100% impossible for anyone to know if a signature has been forged unless,
They are the forger themselves…or
They watched the forger forge the signature and knew the forger was committing forgery.
They are informed by a law enforcement expert on handwriting analysis that a signature has been determined to be a forgery…or they have been provided documentation that forgery was deemed to have been committed by law enforcement.”
Monroe goes on, “None of the above occurred, therefore, it seems to me that David Haick is likely making this accusation in an attempt to deflect attention from the possibilities that he may have used poor judgement and/or that he may have demonstrated poor ethics.”
I agree with Monroe. It’s hard for me to understand how David Haick could prepare multiple deeds for properties escalating in value anywhere from $35,000 - $50,000 on the same day or within days, over and over again, in a questionable part of town and not notice a pattern. It is a very easy google search on Jefferson County, Kentucky online land records to look up Kevin Hickman, (I used him as an example because my name, as I stated above, is forged on deeds with him), and see he is buying and selling properties with fraudulenty inflated values on the same day. To perpetuate the fraud the title company would need to order two deeds for the same property at the same time. The pattern should have raised a lot of red flags, but curiously it did not.
David Haick went as far as to threaten me and my co-author, Mark Hubley, multiple times, that if we didn't take his name out of the book, he would sue us. I refused and never heard from him again as our attorney predicted. He told Mark, “David Haick doesn’t want the publicity of a lawsuit.” I would welcome my day in court though.
Had I known my name was forged when the fraud scheme was revealed, I would have filed a civil lawsuit against both title companies, (ASK Title Co. & Mooser & Freibert Title), both notaries involved and David Haick. There is a five year statue of limitations in Kentucky to file such a lawsuit, and as I mentioned above and didn’t know my name was forged until ten years later. I was 3,650 days late and a dollar short.
The closing attorney who closed one of the loans has also remained silent. I suspect he didn’t question the validity of my signature as he had a cozy relationship with my ex-husband. Therein lies the problem. It doesn’t matter how well you know someone, if the signature is not made in the presence of a notary and there is no power of attorney, it’s fraud. It’s obvious that there were bad business practices and a lack of due dilligence. I filed a police report in 2015 when I learned of the forgeries and nothing was done. No one has been held accountable. Were these people co-conspirators? Were they cooperating with the FBI? Did they get immunity for life? Their lives have been curiously unaffected while mine has been blown apart.
A detective from the police department in Prospect, Kentucky, where I lived at the time the crimes took place, suggested that it was highly probable that many involved cooperated for immunity. “It happens all the time and it's disheartening. Many times I've had a criminal walk because a deal was made with the prosecutor to get an even bigger fish.” Of course, I know it happens all the time, but I was accustomed to watching the scenario play out on crime shows. It's an entirely different feeling when you believe the scenario played out in your own life, as I do.
After reading my book, a local closing agent, (who ironically worked at one of the attorney’s offices), reached out to me, “Libby, when I heard about your ex-husband’s indictment, I never once thought about the families.” She went on to say “We did have bad business practices, “ citing an example: “One of my co-workers brought up serious concerns about Ted’s, (my ex-husband), paperwork to our boss, (the closing attorney), and he said “just do it, it’s not our problem.” In my opinion those “bad business practices” along with a complicit appraiser, created a conducive environment for my ex-husband and his co-conspirators to commit fraud.
(According to one deed dated February 4th, Kevin Hickman purchased the house above from Willie Mae Hobs for $35,000. Later that day, (I use the word “later” loosely because I’m confident these fraudulent deals happened back to back), I purchase the same house from Kevin Hickman, (we’ve never met), for $70,000. How in the world could the house above increase in value by $35,000 on the same day in one of the most depressed areas of Louisville, KY? I’ll tell you how? a corrupt appraiser was inflating the vaule of the property, (more on him in another post). This is just one example, there are one hundred more.
The closing agent isn’t alone about not thinking of the families and how they are affected. Many people don’t think of the far-reaching tentacles white-collar crime has on them. In my particluar situation, I was a stay-at-home mom. I’d been a stay-a-home mom for ten years after undergoing multiple back sugeries. When my life imploded, I lost my home, car, all marital funds, (I was left with $11.38 cents), received no alimony, had child support reduced to $149 dollars a month, and was forced into Chapter 7 bankrupcty. In Kentucky, Chapter 7 bankruptcy is a ten year sentence. It affected my ability to obtain credit, knocked me out as a job candidate due to the credit check I couldn’t pass, I had to pay higher car insurance premiums, and was unable to rent an apartment for me and my daughter without a letter from an attorney explaining I wasn’t complicit in my ex-husband’s fraud, (I still don’t understand how filing bankruptcy equals fraud complicity?). My ex-husband may have been in prison serving his sentence, but I, like many white-collar wives and their families, was serving an underserved sentence on the outside. The emotional distress, financial fallout and humilation my ex-husband’s wrongdoing is unparalleled.
Time has passed since I first learned my husband was being investigated by the FBI but it’s as if it happened yesterday. Trauma has a way of becoming an unwanted companion. White-collar crime didn’t only change the life of my ex-husband but also profoundly changed my life and my daughter’s. Forever.
* If you have been affected by White Collar Crime please visit Lisa Lawler @ https://thewhitecollarwivesproject.org/the-white-collar-wives-project/ for support.
