An Indiana real estate developer was sentenced to 41 months in prison for his role in a fraud scheme aimed at real estate investors.
According to court documents, Herbert “Bert” Whalen operated Oceanpointe Property Management in Indianapolis from August 2016 to July 2018. Whalen was part of a scheme to defraud investors by misrepresenting and concealing the poor condition of properties in Indiana and New Jersey managed by Oceanpointe and by creating fake leases for unoccupied Oceanpointe properties. Investors were promised that, after repairs and rehabilitations were completed, and tenants rented the properties, investors would receive copies of the leases and begin to receive rent payments as their return on investment.
In reality, many Oceanpointe properties were not repaired and rehabilitated, and were not ready for occupancy. To conceal these facts from victim investors, Whalen and a conspirator directed Oceanpointe employees to draft fake leases that gave the false impression to investors that the Oceanpointe properties were rented. Whalen instructed Oceanpointe employees to place fake tenant names on leases to send to Oceanpointe investors.
When some investors began to raise concerns over what was happening, Whalen and his collaborators commingled tenant rent payments and selected which investors would be paid from the pool of funds. To prevent investors from leaving Oceanpointe and exposing his fraudulent conduct, Whalen directed an Oceanpointe employee to create a false identity and falsely claim to be a satsified investor with Oceanpointe. These misrepresentations and others led to millions of dollars in losses to investors, which Whalen used to, among other things, fund his lifestyle.
Whalen previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. In addition to the prison term, Whalen was sentenced to three years of supervised release.
2016 to 2018 seems like a long time ago. Why so long to prosecute this guy and put him in jail???? So much greed. What was he lacking that he had to steal from innocent people???
I hope no early release for this guy.
I knew of Bert Whalen and Oceanpointe in our industry. He was fishy then and was someone I avoided in my role as an appraiser after being involved with some of his refinances with lenders. I’m retired now but boy do I remember his name and company as do a lot of other veteran Real Estate brokers and bank lenders. At one time he and/or Oceanpointe were big time investors in the Indianapolis area. He over promised and under delivered and created a nightmare for my appraisal company since very few of his properties ever came close to the market value that he and Oceanpointe wanted in order to over leverage these rentals or flips. I was hoping that some how and some way he’d be stopped from doing his shady real estate transactions and now I see that he has. The justice system works albeit slower than many prefer.
Doesn’t it make you wonder what in the world goes on in peoples heads! If he would have thought it though for 10 minutes he would have realized his ponzi scheme would NOT have a happy ending.
There was no mention of him paying back the money to investors. Interesting!