Share this article!

The owners of an Oregon-based real estate investment company have been charged with defrauding individual investors and commercial lenders out of more than $18 million.

According to the indictment, Robert D. Christensen and Anthony M. Matic are accused of conducting a scheme from January 2019 through June 2023 wherein they convinced individual investors to fund the purchase and renovation of undervalued residential real estate properties. After renovating the properties, Christensen and Matic claimed they would rent the properties to generate income and then refinance them to extract their increased value from the renovations.

Christensen and Matric are accused of misleading investors into believing they would be repaid their full principal investment along with interest as high as 8% to 15% and a large lump sum payout, all within periods as short as 30 to 90 days. But the scheme failed to generate the promised returns almost immediately and they began using new investments to repay earlier investors to keep their business afloat.

However, the pair could not raise enough money from new investors, so they devised another scheme to defraud commercial lenders. By December 2020, the pair began submitting loan applications with false financial information to different commercial lenders and soon received millions of dollars in loans.

In total, Christensen and Matic’s two schemes defrauded individual investors out of more than $11 million and commercial lenders out of more than $7 million.

Christensen and Matic have been charged in a 21-count indictment with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Both were arraigned, pleaded not guilty, and released on conditions pending a seven-day jury trial scheduled to begin on Oct. 29.

Conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud are punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison and three years’ supervised release. Money laundering in punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison and three years’ supervised release. All three charges may also result in fines of up to $250,000 or twice the gross gains or losses resulting from the offense.