Five nabbed in alleged mortgage-fraud scheme in Pierce, King counties

Tom Backman says the deal to sell his house in Pacific two years ago seemed fishy from the get-go. The real-estate agent was hard to reach and demanded a specific escrow closer. The actual buyer was never around.

Still Backman, who had already moved to rural Idaho, wanted to get the deal closed. He even agreed personally to loan the buyer $53,500 to seal the sale.

But the loan payments quit coming. The house fell into foreclosure. Then one day, federal agents told him he might have been the victim of an elaborate mortgage-fraud scheme.

Now Backman worries that if he doesn't get his money back, he'll lose his current home.

"I really feel kind of hopeless," said Backman, a fisheries biologist. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

Wednesday, federal agents arrested five people they say were involved in Backman's home purchase after a federal grand jury in Seattle indicted them on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mortgage fraud and money laundering.

The prosecution documents allege the conspiracy involved dozens of falsified real-estate sales used to scam banks and innocent sellers all over King and Pierce counties out of at least $18 million in at least 80 loans.

Indicted were real-estate agent Humberto A. Reyes-Rodriguez, 42, of Federal Way — known to Backman and others as Tony Reyes; real-estate agent Alexis Ikilikyan, 29, of Auburn; Ikilikyan's ex-husband, William S. Poff, 37, of Michigan; Micki S. Thompson, 54, an escrow agent from Tacoma; and Mario A. Marroquin, 38, of Kent.

Reyes-Rodriguez, Thompson and Marroquin pleaded not guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle. Ikilikyan's arraignment was set for Friday. All of them were ordered held pending later bail hearings. Poff is being held in Michigan.

The charges could result in prison sentences of up to 20 years.

Thompson was an employee of Great American Escrow in Federal Way, which has since closed for reasons unrelated to the case.

The indictment alleges she helped complete fraudulent paperwork and personally accepted more than $10,500 from Ikilikyan in return.

But the escrow firm's owner, attorney Chris Benson, said Wednesday he is confident Thompson has been innocently caught up in the case by following closing instructions from the indicted real-estate agents, not knowing the sales were illegal.

Benson said he would be "completely stunned" if Thompson was actually involved. She has been an "honest and straightforward" employee for 13 years, he said.

"There's no way she did anything."

The case is the latest in a string of major mortgage-fraud cases that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle has brought over the past year or so.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Vogel doubts it will be the last. While Vogel wouldn't say how investigators learned of the scheme, more such schemes are being revealed as the real-estate market has tanked, she said.

In this latest case, like many others, prosecutors allege the defendants enlisted "straw buyers," people who would purchase and resell homes using falsified documents, income statements and false appraisals to obtain inflated loans. Then they would divvy up the loan money with no intention of repaying the loans or actually occupying the houses.

But what sets this case apart somewhat, Vogel said, is the variety of other ways the scammers found to milk banks of money.

The documents allege the defendants also took out fraudulent home-equity loans. And they even allegedly set up phony handyman companies to bill escrow for supposed home repairs.

And in this case, the defendants in some instances got unwitting home sellers to extend their own private loans — called "carry-back notes" — to the phony buyers, the prosecutors say. The sellers lost it all when no one paid on the primary bank loans and the homes were foreclosed.

Backman said that's exactly what happened to him.

When he sold his home in Pacific in April 2007, Reyes was the primary real-estate agent, and the buyer was a woman who now appears to be Marroquin's mother, based on court and county records. Escrow was handled by Thompson.

Backman said Thompson seemed to keep getting the loan documents wrong, or changed them too often. Then Reyes demanded that a bunch of dubious repairs be done to the house and insisted on using a company called Universal Flooring, which documents now say was a shell company run by Marroquin.

"I thought things were rather strange, but it never occurred to me to call up the police," Backman said. "It all looked honest [at the time] because there were so many organizations."

Even after the sale closed, Backman said his suspicions continued. His former next-door neighbor told him the new owner never moved in or came around, only Reyes. And one time federal immigration officials came and hauled off renters living there.

Now that the indictments have been released, Backman said it helps explain a lot. But it may not help him get back his money.

He had been counting on it to fulfill a short-term loan he took for the down payment on his current home. Now he has to come up with $50,000, or he's in real trouble.

"I wonder how much of this is going on around the country," he said.

Ian Ith: 206-464-2109 or iith@seattletimes.com