New Jersey deed scam skimmed $580K from investors

A pair of scammers may be headed to the slammer after gambling on a property deed scheme in Atlantic City that bilked investors out of $580,000.

Richard Toelk Jr., 54, and Keith Smith, 60, filed fake deeds for properties in Atlantic City at the Atlantic County Clerk’s Office from November 2018 to January 2019, according to the state attorney general’s office. Most of the properties were owned by the city government, while some were privately owned.

Toelk and Smith recently pleaded guilty to charges related to the scam and are set to be sentenced in the coming weeks.

Investors from New York City and Philadelphia sent the two money under the presumption they were acquiring real estate. Instead, they were acquiring the “the title to nothing,” prosecutors said. 

The scam was sophisticated enough that even those in the industry were fooled.

“Their ruse, along with the paper trail manufactured to support it, were convincing enough that experienced real estate investors became victims,” attorney general Matthew Platkin said in a statement on their pleas. 

Toelk and Smith ran their scheme multiple times, faking at least 20 deeds that appeared to show ownership of various properties being transferred to them. Among the properties involved by the scheme was an Atlantic City Boardwalk property owned by the government and valued at more than $1 million.

The law finally caught up to the duo, though, who are required to pay full restitution to their victims.

Toelk pleaded guilty to second-degree thrift and faces up to three years in state prison when he is sentenced on March 23. Smith pleaded guilty to third-degree conspiracy; prosecutors recommend probation for him, but only if he serves up to a year in the Atlantic County jail. He will be sentenced on April 6.

— Holden Walter-Warner