Home-napping scam busted in Brooklyn

By MIKE CLAFFEY

August 29, 2000 Web posted at: 11:30 AM EDT (1530 GMT)

NEW YORK (The New York Daily News) -- Using a remarkably simple and effective scam, a smooth-talking con man forged deeds to steal 11 Brooklyn buildings, authorities said yesterday.

Kevin Walker, 35, who posed as a psychologist and owner of a realty company, then resold or mortgaged the homes for a total take of $1.6 million, according to Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.

"With nothing more than a few pieces of paper, forged deeds, he turned nothing into $1.6 million," said Hynes.

Walker, who is being held on $100,000 bail, was charged with 23 counts of grand larceny and 22 counts of forgery.

Investigators from the district attorney's office began looking into the real estate con in 1998, after heirs to a house at 3517 Snyder Ave. in Flatbush reported that the title had been suspiciously transferred to Walker on Dec. 22, 1995.

The deed was signed by John and Emily Nordlund, but it was immediately obvious that the document was a fraud, Hynes said; Emily Nordlund died May 30, 1986.

When investigators checked the paper trail on Walker, they uncovered a string of 11 bogus deeds executed between April 1996 and April 1998.

According to Hynes, Walker, whose address is 311 Lakeland Ave. in Sayville, L.I., scoured areas of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Flatbush, East Flatbush and Sheepshead Bay for properties that appeared to be abandoned.

Using legal documents available at many stationery stores, Walker then allegedly forged the owners' signatures and filed the phony deeds with the Finance Department.

He used a phony front company with the warm-and-fuzzy name of Communicare to carry out some of his scams, authorities said. But the company has no office, just a phone number.

Walker used 10 of the properties to secure more than $900,000 in mortgage loans, Hynes said.

He sold five of the homes to real estate companies, netting more than $700,000. Title searches failed to catch that the deeds were bogus, and the homes were sold to unsuspecting buyers.

Hynes said the rightful owners or heirs are entitled to recover their properties, and that the title search companies are legally responsible for signing off on the titles.

One of the victims, Nachum Greenspan, is leaving it to his lawyer to recover the home his mother lived in at 687 E. 91st St. in East Flatbush. People are living in the house, and Greenspan said he doesn't want them tossed out on the street.

"Our main concern is that everyone walk out with at least a semblance of justice, even though I know that may be impossible," Greenspan said.

Investigators are still trying to find out more about Walker's background and what became of the loot.

"On its face, we don't see any assets," said Dennis Hawkins, chief of investigations for the district attorney's office. "The money could be in a safe deposit box, or it could be stuffed under a mattress. We're trying to see if there are any assets out there."

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