4 Indicted in $41-Million Home Buynig Fraud

Four Long Beach-area residents who purportedly purchased approximately 343 residences with litle or no money down, then collected more than $770,000 by renting the properties while failing to make necessary mortgage payments on them were indicted Wednesday in Los Angeles.

The 32-count federal indictment named Mark Christopher Meng and Marcel Fernando Jordan, each half owners of Suma Properties Limited of Long Beach, and Carol Ann Hays and Charles H. Meng Jr., both vice presidents of the firm.

The defendants were accused of mail fraud, skimming equity and false declaration in a bankruptcy action. They were charged with obligating themselves to buy property valued at more than $41 million.

According to the government, Suma employees would answer for-sale-by-owner advertisments in newspapers, offer to buy property at the asking price, agree to pay the equity the owners had in the property, provide promissory notes promising to pay future mortgage payments and rent the residences after securing the deeds.

Over about a two and a half year period, the indictment said, Suma “made virtually no payments,” while collecting rents and staving off foreclosure on the defaulted mortgages by transferring paper ownership to a third party, who declared bankruptcy.

When Mark Meng and Marcel Jordan were arrested by Long Beach police in February, 1985, Sgt. Robert Bell, head of the Long Beach Police Department’s fraud detail, said the investigation had extended as far north as Mono County, as far south as San Diego County and included Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties.