2 convicted in Brooklyn straw buyer scheme

Two Brooklyn fraudsters were found guilty of selling the same building twice, to two different buyers, according to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office. Mavis Samuel and Carlyle Ebanks sold a multi-family building at 1162 Pacific Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant in September 2004 to a straw buyer for $4,000, the DA’s office said, before having the property deeded back to them by the buyer — who was recovering from a massive brain injury — in 2005. In November 2006, the pair then promised a friend a partnership in their real estate investment company should he agree to buy the building. “The defendants illegally inflated the ‘partner’s’ income and savings account balance on a $1 million mortgage application, to buy 1162 Pacific Street for that price,” the DA’s office said. “With that ‘sale’ they paid off the mortgage on the original straw purchase, pocketed between $300,000 and $400,000, and maintained ownership.” While 1162 Pacific Street reportedly burned down between the two illegal sales, the two were still tried for — and convicted of — second-degree grand larceny and multiple count of falsifying business records. They will be sentenced in April, and face as much as 15 years in prison. TRD