​When the California Attorney General last week announced the arrests of Christopher Wright Fox (right) and his partner Curtis James Melone for allegedly collecting more than $6 million from homeowners nationwide for loan modification services that were never performed, Moe Bedard was not surprised. "What does surprise me," Bedard reacted, "is how long it took to issue these arrest warrants when these loan modification clowns have been operating for many years now."
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​A notary public who was to be the key witness against two Irvine title officers accused of orchestrating a massive mortgage foreclosure "robo-signing" fraud scheme was found dead in her Las Vegas home. Tracy Lawrence, 43, missed her sentencing hearing on a misdemeanor charge Monday, after which she was to testify against Geraldine Ann Sheppard, 62, of Santa Ana, and Gary Randall Trafford, 49, of Irvine, according to a Nevada state prosecutor.
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​There has been a lot of talk around the country about homes being illegally foreclosed upon. For instance, the word on the streets of Oakland right now is that greedy banks are specifically targeting the houses of African Americans. But such stories have gone from rumors to, well, legitimate stories when it comes to America's fighting forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently released data that indicates nearly 5,000 military members may have been improperly foreclosed upon. And that frosts a certain Orange County congresswoman on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.
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​Seal Beach real estate agent John Wesley Martynec, who was arrested in August for allegedly stealing $302,000 from investors by fraudulently promising to buy and re-sell foreclosed homes for a profit, is scheduled to be arraigned in Westminster this morning.

The Long Beach 36-year-old is facing a laundry list of felony charges that could have him moving into a state prison cell for 30 years and eight months.
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​The Huntington Beach home of disgraced former Bell city administrator Robert Rizzo has sold for $939,000.

That's $40,000 less than the asking price when the two-story home was first listed in June, $10,000 less than a later discounted price--and $139,000 more than the bloated bureaucrat earned in annual salary for Bell--population 35,000 and change--before he was run out of the working-class town on a rail.
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​San Diego attorney Michael Theodore Pines was supposed to be sentenced Friday for the conviction based on the bad advice he gave to an elderly man who broke into his foreclosed Newport Coast home--in front of the media and arresting police officers. But Pines now has to wait until Dec. 16 to learn his fate. An Orange County judge on Friday agreed to delay sentencing until then because Pines was undergoing a psychiatric evaluation prompted by a San Diego County Superior Court judge questioning the attorney's mental competency.
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​Two Orange County investment "experts" have been convicted of bilking friends and elderly folks out of nearly $10 million in separate Ponzi schemes that funded their lavish lifestyles.

The bigger thief, when it came to funds swindled, is Mark Alan Helsing. The 53-year-old Tustin resident was convicted Monday of stealing $6.9 million from investors in his Ponzi and real estate fraud scheme.
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​Promoting a new movie at the Toronto Film Festival that has him playing the head of a household victimized by intruders, Nicolas Cage has been recounting for various ink-stained wretches the break-in into his former Newport Beach mansion. Cage, who was sleeping in his bayfront bedroom with his wife while his then-2-year-old was night-night in another room on Oct. 1, 2007, recalled opening his eyes to a man hunched over his bed wearing only Nic's leather jacket and eating a Fudgesicle poached from the freezer.
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​UPDATE, SEPT. 1, 6:03 P.M.: San Diego attorney Michael Theodore Pines was found guilty by a jury in Newport Beach today of attempting to illegally break into a foreclosed Newport Coast home.

Convicted of one misdemeanor count each of vandalism, attempted second degree burglary, the attempted unauthorized entry of a dwelling, and obstructing an officer, the 59-year-old faces a sentence ranging from probation up to three years in jail and up to $10,000 in fines at his Oct. 14 sentencing.
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​With banks not lending and homes becoming weed collectors, Seal Beach real estate agent John Wesley Martynec hatched what sounded like a win-win for investors: he would pool their cash to buy foreclosed fixer-uppers in Los Angeles County, have them renovated, re-sell the homes at mark-ups and divvy up the profits with his partners.

It would start raining money on investors in six months, the sole owner of Samax Real Estate informed. Last December, when that had not happened, some investors called the Seal Beach Police Department. Martynec now faces 34 felony counts for an alleged $300,000 scam.
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