A homebuilder has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Baltimore for conspiring to commit wire fraud arising from a construction investment scheme.
According to the indictment, Patrick Belzner was the co-conspirator of an alleged scam that targeted individuals seeking investment opportunities or commercial real estate development lending.
Belzner, who presented himself as “Patrick McCloskey” to certain investors, told the victims that in order to obtain loans for commercial real estate projects, the purported lenders required an exuberant amount of money be deposited in an escrow bank account to show liquidity.
The indictment alleges that in order to gain their victims’ confidence, Belzner and his co-conspirators caused victim investors and borrowers to enter into escrow agreements which stated that no person other than the victims had the ability to remove the escrowed funds without the victims’ permission. Belzner told the victims that a co-conspirator in this scam had to be the attorney assigned as the escrow agent.
This fraudulent investment scheme, which supposedly took place from at least August 2009 to August 2011, allegedly withdrew approximately $14.7 million from the escrow accounts, the indictment said.
To conceal their scheme, Belzner and his co-conspirators allegedly e-mailed fabricated bank statements to victims that misrepresented the escrow account balance and the date by when the investors’ money would be returned.
The conspirators used the stolen funds from this scam for their own business and personal debt. Belzner and his co-conspirators also used funds fraudulently obtained from some victim investors to repay money owed to previous victim investors or to other individuals to whom the conspirators owed debts.
Belzner, who has been arrested by federal authorities, faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
