A Connecticut real estate agent was sentenced in federal court in Boston for defrauding his clients through a scheme involving the short sales of government and bank-owned properties to straw buyers.
Sheldon Haag was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and two years of supervised release, and he was ordered to forfeit $277,331 and to pay restitution in an amount to be determined at a later date.
According to the charges brought against him, Haag and another real estate agent, James Macchio, used straw buyers to acquire properties owned by the clients of a brokerage where they worked, which included banks, federal agencies, bankruptcy trustees and other mortgage holders. The straw buyers included a shell company set up by a co-conspirator as a purported construction company.
Haag and his co-conspirators hid their involvement as the de facto buyers of short sale properties from their clients, the owners of the properties, and used their inside knowledge as the owner’s broker to minimize sale prices in order to maximize their gain from later “flipping” the properties.
Haag and his co-conspirators also submitted fraudulent renovation bids from contractors to their own clients, including from the fake construction company they controlled through a co-conspirator. Once their clients accepted a fraudulent bid, Haag and his co-conspirators would hire different contractors at much lower cost and pocket the difference.
Haag pleaded guilty in June 2023 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Macchio pleaded guilty last May and is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 19.
Photo courtesy of Sheldon Haag’s Instagram page
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I have seen proof of listing agents doing similar things. Not submitting offers unless it’s for a flipper who is willing to turn around and give them the listing after they have flipped it. So, they are getting the listing/buy side and relisting. Deplorable! These are the things that make consumers question our integrity.
That is not unethical. I hope they loose their license to practice real estate.
I feel it’s those people that give honest and hard working agents a bad name.
Punishment was not nearly enough. The short, “slap-on-the-wrist”, jail times
will NOT deter others. They should have to serve more jail time but work while in
jail to repay at least 5x the amount they intended to steal, and they should never
be allowed to work in any real estate related job again.
Strange how crimes that really harm people (financially) are often treated with
light sentencing, but I think that is because the U.S. excels at rewarding really huge
financial crimes. I remember the 2008 recession and how few people ever went to jail,
the ones who orchestrated the frauds, yet despite devastating the national economy and almost triggering a global depression, I can only remember a few people who
ever went to jail; the rest remained happily employed on Wall Street and other financial centers. Seems the lesson is that BIG CRIMES pay very well.