Four real estate investors were sentenced for coordinating a multi-year conspiracy that fraudulently obtained multimillion-dollar loans on commercial and multifamily properties.
Aron Puretz and his son, Chaim “Eli” Puretz, both of New Jersey, were sentenced to prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution. Aron Puretz was sentenced to 60 months in prison and ordered to pay $22.2 million in restitution, and Eli Puretz was sentenced to 24 months in prison and ordered to pay $20.3 million in restitution.
Moshe “Mark” Silber and Fredrick Schulman, both of New York, were also sentenced to terms of imprisonment for their respective roles in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution. Silber was sentenced to 30 months in prison, and Schulman was sentenced to 12 months and a day in prison, to be followed by nine months of home confinement. Their restitution amounts will be determined at a later hearing.
According to court documents, Aron and Eli Puretz were owners of a commercial property, Troy Technology Park in Troy, Michigan. In September 2020, they purchased Troy Technology Park for approximately $42 million, before selling or flipping the property to a co-conspirator for approximately $70 million.
The Puretzes and their co-conspirators provided the lender with falsified documents that included the inflated purchase price. Based on the fraudulent documents, the lender funded a loan for $45 million. To conceal their fraud, the collaborators arranged for a short-term $30 million loan, which was used to make it appear that they had the funds needed to close on the sale. On Sept. 25, 2020, a title company based in Lakewood, New Jersey, performed two simultaneous closings, one for the true sales price and another for the fraudulent sales price presented to the lender.
Separately, Silber and Schulman were managing members of Rhodium Capital Advisors, an entity that was involved in the acquisition and management of Williamsburg of Cincinnati, a large apartment complex in Ohio. In March 2019, Williamsburg of Cincinnati was acquired for $70 million – but Silber, Schulman, and other co-conspirators utilized a stolen identity to present a lender and Fannie Mae with a fraudulent purchase-and-sale contract for over $95 million and other fraudulent documents. On March 8, 2019, two closings were performed, one for the true $70 million sales price and another for the fraudulent over $95 million sales price presented to the lenders. Based on the co-conspirators’ false statements, the lender and Fannie Mae funded a loan of roughly $74 million for the purchase of the property.
Where was the due diligence by the lender? None. The bank officers who originated and approved the loan should be in jail too.
So they will spend a short time in the cushy federal prison for white collar criminals, that’s not enough punishment. But we have a dual court system in this country, one for wealthy criminals and one for the others. I saw it myself when I visited a friend in the federal prison in PA. Wake up people, you are being ruled by the super rich, but that’s the way of our freedom, you can get rich by lying and cheating.