A federal grand jury sitting in the Atlanta Division of the Northern District of Georgia handed down a seventeen count indictment charging Jennifer C. Grant and Hurbert W. Grant with conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, loan and credit application fraud, interstate/foreign travel fraud and bankruptcy fraud. The indictment also includes a forfeiture count.

The indictment alleges that Jennifer Grant and Hurbert Grant devised a scheme to defraud real estate owners, investors and mortgage lenders. The indictment describes a scheme whereby the Grants would induce real estate investors to purchase properties in the Atlanta, Georgia and Aliceville, Alabama areas based on representations that Jennifer Grant had an inside contract at a bank that allowed them to provide ‘foreclosure’ properties to their clients at greatly reduced prices and that the Grants would manage the properties purchased, including making repairs and locating tenants whose lease payments would cover the mortgage payments until the properties were sold at substantial profit. The indictment further alleges that quitclaims were acquired as to properties by means of false representations to property owners that second mortgages or refinances were being obtained and that they caused straw borrowers to misrepresent intent to occupy and down payments in mortgage and closing documents.

The indictment details multiple transactions, for instance:

On June 20, 1997 the defendants deeded their personal residence at 569 Shadow Oaks Drive, Stone Mountain, Georgia to a straw buyer and arranged for him to obtain mortgage loans of $253,774 against the property. The straw buyer was not qualified to obtain the loans. They then had the straw buyer deed the property back to them. When they were unable to repay the fraudulent loans, they filed a petition in bankruptcy to stay foreclosure proceedings.

On March 11, 2000, Jennifer Grant met with a homeowner and told him she owned a mortgage company. She offered him a second mortgage on his property at 1575 Elleby Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia, obtained his signature to ‘see if there was a lien on the property’ and gave him $1,000 as ‘honest money’ to do business with her rather than a competitor. On March 13, 2000, when the homeowner advised Grant that he was not interested in a loan she said she would return the paper he signed and pick up the $1,000. On April 11, 2000, Jennifer Grant and Hurbert Grant caused the recording of a fraudulent quit claim deed purportedly transferring the homeowner’s property to Dametrius Hannah as of February 20, 1999. In May 2000, they worked with a mortgage broker (the sister of Dametrius Hannah) to obtain a mortgage loan against the property in the name of an unqualified straw buyer. When the mortgage loan closed on the property, Jennifer Grant obtained almost $40,000 in loan proceeds. They obtained a quitclaim deed transferring the property from Dametrius Hannah to the straw buyer.

Other properties referred to in the complaint include:

4153 Sandy Lake Drive, Atlanta, Georgia

5188 Flakes Mill Road, Ellenwood, Georgia

901 Winfield Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia

5313 Sandy Shores Court, Lithonia, Georgia

1840 Stanton Street, Decatur, Georgia

815 Hightower Trail, Conyers, Georgia

1801 Smokerise East Drive, Lithonia, Georgia

8170 Royal Troon Drive, Duluth, Georgia

1370 Cascade Falls Drive, Atlanta, Georgia