A Staggering Swindle: Your Thoughts

What an impressive investigation. It'd be great to get a little background on how you learned about and researched the identity-renting scheme.

Posted by Eskimo | reply to this comment
April 13, 2009 11:50 am

Sorry, I'm not getting too twisted up over this. And I do appreciate all the hard work this investigation required--maybe it will get another award? Fact remains tho' that at the 30,000 ft. view is this story really worth all the effort and hype? Just 2 weeks ago, some gangsta and his crew got caught for a similar con, so I guess mortgage scams will be appearing / revealed with more frequency. Certain segments of the population are criminal and greedy, some are stupid--us regular folks pay for everything for everybody--nothing new there. I'm far angrier over the unions Project Labor Agreement scheme at San Diego Unified that's going to cost taxpayers about $400 million in school improvements. Why aren't you doing more to shine a light on that fraud before the agreement is signed?

Posted by Linda Tegarden | reply to this comment
April 13, 2009 12:04 pm

no sympathy for these greedy investors who did something so skanky.

Posted by sed | reply to this comment
April 13, 2009 12:50 pm

The issue isn't this investigation or the other one, it's the collateral damage that is going to come from this. It's the collateral damage to other buyers who used these sales as comps, the legitimate buyers with verified income, 20% down and conventional loans, who now are twisted upside down and may walk away (one hopes not, it's a roof over their head), compounding the losses. It's the collateral damage from us taxpayers having to deal with it. And it's the overall ripple effect this will have on disposable income, etc. Fraud needs to be brought to light, wherever it sits. This just doesn't have Randy Cunningham behind it, but it's still a big deal. And it's coming to a city near you...good work, Kelly. Whatever happened to our values, people?

Posted by discdude | reply to this comment
April 13, 2009 1:05 pm

first a good job of reporting. two things that I was left confused about. A) Who (if anyone) was getting prosecuted for what seems like fraud. Remember reading about something either in your report or the UT about Alameda County but that is an important part of the story. If there are NOT going to be prosecutions than that IS the story. B) Somewhere being lost here, especially in the congradulations is what the impact of the investigative reporting was. Did you shut the scam down? Are the regulators going to take greater action? Did you uncover an example of a bigger problem (and thus warned folks about renting their ID's)?

Posted by Erik | reply to this comment
April 13, 2009 1:21 pm

A big part of this is missing: Q - Who owned the condos? A - Ralph Gianella. Q - Why not mention him in the article? A - He is a well-connected La Jollan. link Q - What else is Giannella involved in? A - Failure to repay $12.6 mill loan to Comerica. link Q - Again, why doesn't Voice mention him? A - ?

Posted by There is so much more | reply to this comment
April 15, 2009 8:27 am

Hey I love the part when the mortgage brokers said they new nothing of a scam...Ya right!! Everyone was in on this deal..Realtor, broker, Mortgage broker,finance co. employees,appraiser, coversion owners,and the stupid ass buyers...Greed was not so good especially when all these folks end up in prison!!! GOOD JOB GUYS!!!

Posted by JW | reply to this comment
April 13, 2009 1:45 pm

Excellent job of investigative reporting. The complicity of all involved is astounding -- up and down the line. I just wonder whether any of this is a prosecutable offense. Certainly, the buyers should have known that that they were signing false documents when some overstated income or assets. Just goes to show you that greed is still a potent drug, and lots of folks are in need of a good 12-step program.

Posted by TKD | reply to this comment
April 14, 2009 6:36 am

There are always unscrupulous predators in a slow economy. People do things that they would never do otherwise. Ms. Jenkins was willing to sell her identity, instead of a $50K payout, she ends up with default actions in her name. She was greedy or naive or both. McConville is a snake. Those who got "taken" failed to conduct any research or they could have avoided the mess. Discodude mentions the infamous Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Every time he gets mentioned I get a mental image of him, crying when he was on camera. His theme song should have been Big Boys Don't Cry.

Posted by Auntsandiegospeaks | reply to this comment
October 16, 2009 9:27 am

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