A fraud in deed can leave you in need

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Couple left distraught after peaceful $1m plot of land where they planned to retire was stolen from them

Back when I practiced real estate law in the 80s, clients who were already stretching to afford their purchase often balked at paying an extra premium for homeowner’s title insurance, and wanted to just buy the cheaper “lenders’ insurance required by their bank instead (lenders’ policies are limited to the amount of the loan itself because, shockingly, banks only care about getting their money back, not yours.)

I would caution those recalcitrant buyers that they were making a mistake trying to save a few hundred dollars (1980 prices; certainly higher now) by foregoing their own protection. A fence on the wrong side of the property line can be corrected at small expense, and the lender’s policy will cover that, but what if the entire sales transaction was a fraud, and the happy new home buyer learns that seller still owns the house? Assuming a typical 80/20 mortgage arrangement, the bank can get back its 80%, but the buyer’s left sucking wind on the remainder. Or, worse, raw land is purchased and a house built on it, with a title policy that only covers the lender’s loan for the purchase price of the land itself? It happens, and it’s happening more frequently — here’s some of the story from the opening headline above:

A couple received the shock of a lifetime after discovering their million-dollar retirement plot in Massachusetts had been stolen and sold by scammers right under their noses. 

Dr. Omar Jaraki and his wife, Halla, bought 1.84 acres of undeveloped land worth $1 million in Concord back in 1991 - where they planned to build a family home to enjoy their retirement.  

But when the couple called town hall looking for their annual tax bill in August, they were told that the future retirement plan had been sold for about half its worth. 

According to a fraud lawsuit filed by the couple, a scam artist used a counterfeit driver's license, passport and fake email address of Halla to dupe a local real estate agent and two other experienced real estate attorneys into letting them steal the land in 2023. 

The empty plot was reportedly advertised as 'a great opportunity to build your dream home in the ultra-exclusive, sought after and prestigious Mattison Farm neighborhood. One of the only remaining lots and nestled on a 1.84 acre parcel. Close proximity to Concord & Nashawtuc Country Club'.

An unsuspecting buyer has since done just that, erecting an almost-completed home on the plot that they'll almost certainly lose.  

The scammers priced the plot at $699,900.00, well below its value. 

An unwitting buyer put in an offer of $525,000.00, which was erected - and construction began soon after. 

….

Richard Vetstein, the couple's attorney noted: 'The minute I saw this deed, I knew it was a forgery. You just can tell by looking at it. Just the handwriting, it looks off. There were so many other red flags.

'A quick half a million for a counterfeit driver's license and passport and sending a couple of emails. That's a day's work.'

Officials also noted that the fake South Carolina driver's license of Halla did not look 'anything like a real one' and oddly, the fake United States passport of her had the same photo as the driver's license. 

'That's not possible because license photos are taken at the Department of Motor Vehicles. The woman in the fake ID's looks nothing like Halla Jaraki.

'This is a disaster. It's not only for us but for other people like it's going to happen to them,' the attorney exclaimed. 

The law is on the Jarakis side and they'll almost certainly get their plot back.

It is unclear what will happen to the unfortunate people who paid the scammers believing they were buying it. 

A settlement may also be reached that allows the new buyers - who have not been identified - to stay there, if they can afford the extra outlay.  

'They're definitely going to get their property back. I think the only question is, what do we do about the house? There's kind of two ways to go. They can deed the property back to the owners or there can some sort of financial settlement,' Vetstein said.

According to the lawsuit, which is filed against the 'new' owner and the lawyers involved in the scam, the couple are seeking damages, attorneys’ fees and costs against each of the accused. 

Deed fraud is increasingly becoming a big deal — readers may recall the case of the doctor who discovered a house being built on his land in Fairfield by an innocent party who’d been sucked with a phony. It settled this past July, with the home builder buying the house again, one hopes with insurance money, but such cases are no longer unusual.

The Realtor Association published an article on this subject earlier this year:

…. [A]ny type of home deed, including more traditional warranty deeds, can be forged by increasingly sophisticated criminals, says David Fleck, a real estate fraud attorney based in Southern California.

“Twenty-five years ago, it wasn’t easy to forge documents. Now, literally every computer has the technology to create a believable forgery, and you can buy a fake notary stamp online. So the technology has very quickly gotten ahead of the systems we have in place to prevent this,” warns Fleck.

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According to Fleck, the only true protection against title theft is through a specific type of policy, offered by any major insurer, known as a Homeowner’s Policy of Title Insurance. (This is not to be confused with the similarly named Owners Policy of Title Insurance.)

Under covered risks, the policy should include language to the effect of “Someone else claims to have rights affecting Your Title because of forgery or impersonation,” according to a policy template provided by the American Land Title Association trade association.

“All title insurance companies, all the big ones, now offer it,” says Fleck. “Some of them don’t even know they do.”

While traditional title insurance policies protect against fraud prior to the purchase of a property, the Homeowner’s policy adds protection for home title theft after you own the property, says Fleck.

“This is important because if you’re a victim of title theft, a quitclaim deed fraud, or any kind of deed fraud, you just make a claim to your title insurance company, and they handle it for you—and that’s it,” he says.

While insurance also can’t prevent deed forgery in the first place, Fleck says, the right policy will eliminate expense and hassle for the homeowner by putting the onus on the insurance company to resolve the phony title claim in court.

For the illiterate readers of this blog, here’s a video you can watch, instead of struggling through reading this post:

Her performance at her Spanish town hall was included in the previous post, but this bit merits a mention on its own

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  • “How are you going to fix the economy? ““I grew up in a (Toronto) middle-class family.”

  • “How are you going to fix health care?” “I grew up in a middle-class family.”

  • “How are you going to fix the middle-class family?” “I can’t.”

    (Okay, I threw in threw in that last one)

Quien es mas macho?

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However, none of the men in the ad are actually regular voters—they are paid actors.

We figured, but keep going:

Moreover, their real-life circumstances differ significantly from the individuals they portray in the ad. Here are their stories:

- Wayland McQueen is a far-left, pro-Antifa comedian and actor who has, until now, found limited success. He does improv gigs at the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles. In a Twitter post from 2022, he explains what white privilege is and tells you why you need to acknowledge your white privilege. As of 2024 he is single.

Single, gosh, that's a shocker.

Ahem.

- Lanre Idewu is an immigrant from Nigeria. He is also an actor who works at the D.C.-based OCTET Productions. He has many intimate pictures with the Obamas and the Bidens. Idewu, who is bisexual, has done gay-for-pay movies and nude solo shoots. In the "Men for Kamala" ad, he says he is “man enough to f-ing braid his daughter’s hair,” but the only problem is that he doesn’t have a daughter. Idewu isn’t braiding anyone’s hair.

Meep.

- Mike Leffingwell, a gay man, also works at the Upright Citizens Brigade, where McQueen works. He is an acting coach, cartoon writer for Netflix and DreamWorks, and an actor in TV commercials. On his public Instagram page, he showcases his participation in his latest project—the "Men for Kamala" ad.

Because of course.

- Winston Carter, the heavyset fellow in the ad who claims to be a mechanic and rancher, lives in Los Angeles signed with Taft Broadcasting Company. He has found limited success in the acting world, mainly as an extra in films and as a character in the low-budget superhero film Spaghettiman.

- Tony Ketcham, the tough, rugged, bearded grandpa in his garage in the "Men for Kamala" ad, is also an actor. He now mainly does low-budget independent films like Car Botz, where he played the role of PePaw. Tony is unmarried in real life. In 2001, he played the extra role of “alcoholic consumer” in the movie Ghost World.

Fake actors, fake voters, fake brains: is there anything real about this woman?

BILL ACKMAN:

Town halls are designed to be unscripted opportunities to hear from the candidates based on spontaneous questions from the audience. Reportedly, in her Univision town hall, the questioners were preselected and the questions were pre-vetted. Now we know that even her answers had the benefit of a teleprompter.

Kamala Harris is never unscripted and we don’t know who is writing the scripts.

A person who reads scripts is an actor. We don’t want an actor for president particularly when we don’t know who is the script writer and who is the director.

Recently when she went off script and gave an answer ‘they’ didn’t like, her answer was edited and changed just like they do in post-production in Hollywood except this was 60 Minutes.

There is, however, a lot of historical footage available about VP Harris before she was the Democratic nominee. Her answers to questions then don’t match the answers she gives now on border security, foreign policy, fracking, gun buybacks, Medicare for all, defunding the police, and more. Then she was ranked the most left-wing senator based on her voting record.

Whom do you believe? Harris unscripted or the Hollywood version written by anonymous handlers designed to get her elected?

To ask the question is to answer it.

Remember when, in addition to her duties as Border Czar, she was appointed Chairman of the National Space Council? Okay, I didn’t either, but she was, and she performed as ably there as she would have at the border, had she visited it.

The National Space Council, originally created by President George H.W. Bush, was revived by President Trump in 2017 to coordinate space-related exploration, commercial exploitation, and security policies.

Harris plans to add climate change, STEM education, and diversity in the space workforce to the group’s agenda, the White House told Politico.

Even in 2021 she was faking it:

Child actors used for Kamala Harris’ bizarre space video

A video meant to sell children on the wonders of space exploration featured Vice President Kamala Harris giving a memorably loopy performance alongside a quintet of child actors who auditioned for their roles, it was revealed Monday.

“All five of them are actors,” Carlo Bernardino, whose 13-year-old son Trevor was one of the youngsters taking part, told the Washington Examiner. “He’s a child actor — he’s been trying to do this type of thing for a while. And so he has a manager and an agent in LA and they send him castings.”

Trevor Bernardino told KSBW that he was asked to submit a monologue about a topic he is passionate about, as well as three questions he wanted to ask a world leader.

The next step was a virtual interview with the producer of the video, the first in a YouTube Originals series called “Get Curious with Vice President Harris,” which is produced by Canada-based Sinking Ship Entertainment.

“Then after that, like a week later my agent called me and was like, ‘Hey Trevor, you booked it,'” the teen recalled.

You snoozed, you loozed

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Ivan Trump’s old place (she unloaded it in 1998 $15 million) at 21 Vista Drive has sold for $31,500,000. It could have been yours for just $29.999 in July ‘23, before its listing expired. This time, Rob Johnson, for the owner, and Joe Barbieri and Leslie McElwreath, buyers, teamed up for a non-MLS sale.

This has been a long time coming: The sellers first tried for $50 million in 2010, raised it to $54 million in 2014 just because they have a sense of humor, and then steadily lowered their price over the ensuing decade until, voila! A savior appeared.

Extensive work was performed during the first couple of years to de-Trump the place: stripping off the gold leaf, removing the painted nudes, and deflocking the master bedroom. All for naught, probably, if brother Gideon’s guess proves accurate, which I think it will: the house will go, its 5.8 acres will remain.

David Rafferty's Mascara Boy squeaks

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hail, columbia

This particular specimen of a privileged, sexually disoriented individual almost certainly poses no physical threat to anyone: a sharp heel of the palm into his nose would doubtless send him squealing back to his dormitory in tears, barely able to sob out his tale of wickedness to his girlfriends, but his hateful threats are still threats. Expel him? Heaven forfend; Columbia subscribes to the Rafferty school of higher education, a philosophy that cherishes all expression, so long as it’s the right (well, left) expression.

Here again is a sample of Greenwich resident David Rafferty’s screed style (there are many to choose from):

David Rafferty: Colleges are businesses. Students upset about protests can take their business elsewhere

…. Which is exactly what scares the deplorables when they see a boy on campus wearing mascara and a Me-Too T-shirt. They can’t, or won’t, see past his looks to see the critical thinker studying economics to better understand how climate change disrupts the supply chain. What the deplorables actually can’t stand is that mascara boy will be smarter and more successful than they will be. Because done properly, higher education makes you better, so of course they have to hate the universities. 

But if you stay, then that’s on you. Anyone currently on a campus where the protests and counter-protests, violence and fear is still front and center, well, you can’t say you didn’t have options.

So shut up and take it, Jew boy — we’re talking human rights here! Power to the people, right on! Or, as Rafferty’s father Jeff once put it, in another context, “acid is groovy; kill the pigs!” (Okay, Dr. MacDonald was probably no relation to Greenwich Rafferty, but he was on my mind just now, and I thought I’d toss him into the mix, just for fun. Whackos belong together.)

If it feels good, it must BE good, right? Am I right?

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Hidden in your garage, a treasure awaits you

Sound the trumpets!

A Half Million Pounds Have Been Diverted through Greenwich’s Food Scrap Recycling Program in the past four years (total).

That’s out of 71,360,000 pounds of food scraps were collected and disposed elsewhere by the town during that same period.

Put in perspective, after four years of effort, we’ve managed to divert 0.007% of our wet garbage to compost piles and away from of out-of-state landfills: how much are we paying for this symbolism? And how much CO2 has been spewed by coal-fired Teslas driving banana peels to the dump?

Greenwich compost advocates estimate that food waste comprises 22.3% of the 40,000 tons of garbage Greenwich carts off each year; 17,840,000 lbs. X 4 yrs = 71,360,000 lbs of grapefruit rinds and coffee grounds to be disposed of. 500,000 lbs diverted from the waste stream over 4 years, or 0.007%. Freddie and the Dreamers claim that this is saving the taxpayers great big gobs of money; the numbers say that he and they are just tossing horse chips at us.

Biden, of course, calls for Israel to increase the flow of aid to make up for the losses

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see no evil

Hamas caught on video stealing dozens of humanitarian aid trucks entering Gaza Strip

Hamas terrorists were captured on video taking control of 47 of 100 aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip on Tuesday.

“It’s no secret that Hamas takes control of humanitarian aid. We’ve already published here tapes of Hamas, in which you hear them say themselves they have no more room in their warehouses,” Channel 12‘s Almog Boker reported on Wednesday evening.

“But this evening we also bring special documentation of what it looks like from inside, with cameras that are tracking it in real time,” he said.

The footage shows Hamas first taking over the trucks, including attacking the drivers. Then the trucks are driven through Rafah with armed terrorists riding on them. If any citizen approaches the trucks, they are immediately fired upon, Almog reported. Gunshots can be heard in the background of the footage.

Humanitarian aid, meant to prevent starvation among Gazans, has instead become a lifeline for Hamas and its continued control of the Strip.

“Control over humanitarian aid is control over the citizens. Hamas and [its leader Yahya] Sinwar exercise almost absolute control over what happens with humanitarian aid, and this is how they control the population,” Boker reported.

He noted the IDF on Tuesday killed a handful of terrorists trying to take control of some aid, but said that the army’s efforts haven’t been enough.

In a report in mid-September, Boker noted that Hamas resells the aid to the population to finance recruitment, with 3,000 terrorists having been added to Hamas’s payroll in northern Gaza.

… “We let all those trucks come in, and Hamas’s strategy is to steal, hoard and gouge. That’s what they do. … They steal the food. They charge exorbitant prices from the Gazans. And that’s how they continue, [or] they hope to continue, to survive. And we have to take that away from them,” he said

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The Israeli government has been under pressure from the Biden administration to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza from the war’s start, with President Joe Biden promising that if aid ended up in the hands of Hamas it would cease.

Nevertheless, the White House has continued pressing Israel to increase the flow despite admitting publicly that Hamas—a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization—seizes much of the aid.

On Wednesday’s call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which an Israeli retaliatory attack on Iran was the main agenda item, the president again brought up the “the humanitarian situation in Gaza,” according to a White House summary of the call.