COLO. IS VULNERABLE IN EXTRACTION BAN
Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico are the states that are most at risk economically if a ban on extracting coal, natural gas and oil from federal lands ever takes hold.
A Colorado Springs company and four of its principals have agreed to repay $125,000 to foreclosed homeowners — one of them an Aurora theater shooting survivor — they allegedly duped in a found-money scheme involving the public auction of their properties.
The alleged scam by Austin Home Ventures involved homeowners who were rightfully entitled to a small windfall of profit after their houses were sold at a public trustee auction for amounts that were more than what was owed to a bank.
The settlement is the result of a lawsuit the Colorado attorney general’s office filed in December 2015 after a tip from Weld County Public Trustee Suzie Velazquez.
Known as “overbid proceeds,” the money is the difference between what a buyer paid for the property at auction and what was owed to the bank and other lien holders. Each county’s public trustee is required to hold the overbid funds for five years for a homeowner to claim before turning it over to the state treasurer’s unclaimed property fund, where it can be claimed at any time afterward. The Denver Post in 2011 uncovered the existence of the overbid funds and how counties — which at the time were allowed to keep any unclaimed funds if unclaimed after five years — often did little to locate the rightful owners, in part because of a lack of resources. An explosion in the number of foreclosures during the economic collapse caused a number of homes to be sold for more than what was owed on them. The stories prompted dozens of calls from homeowners to public trustees inquiring about money that was owed them.
Lawmakers changed the laws in 2012 following The Post’s stories to make it easier for homeowners to get their money. It was under those new laws that the companies charged in the lawsuit operated.
There is no cost to a homeowner to claim the overbid funds, but Austin Home Ventures and its principals — Bryan Jensen, Ethan Eaton (a.k.a. Ethan Graham), Bailey Perez and Billy Fuston — allegedly made foreclosure victims believe the only way to get the funds was with their help. They would charge up to 50 percent of the money due the homeowner, according to a lawsuit by the Colorado attorney general’s office.
In shooting victim Nickelas Gallup’s case, he was entitled to more than $42,306 after his home was foreclosed in late 2014 — two years after he shielded his girlfriend during the theater shooting and was grazed in the head by a shotgun blast — but saw barely half that amount.
Gallup told Perez he lost his home and job after having medical and financial issues as a result of his experience in Aurora, according to court papers filed in the lawsuit. He had no medical insurance, according to published reports in the aftermath of the shooting.
In all, investigators learned the company and its subsidiaries — Capital Asset Recovery and Capital Realty — allegedly scammed about 25 people with concocted fees and unnecessary procedures to get their money.
The companies also allegedly convinced distressed homeowners facing possible foreclosure or who were just behind on their mortgage payments — some of them military personnel having to fly overseas — to let them sell the property. In reality, however, the principals merely rented the houses, pocketed the cash and did not bother to keep up mortgage payments, the AG lawsuit alleged.
Eaton, Perez and Fuston are responsible for $32,500 of the settlement; AHV and Jensen must have the remaining $92,500 paid by December 2018.
“If you are an unscrupulous business or individual looking to take advantage of homeowners in distress, my office is going to make sure you are held accountable,” Attorney General Cynthia Coffman said in a statement.
None of the defendants admitted to any wrongdoing or any of the allegations the AG made in the lawsuit.