Missing Chatsworth Man Indicted in Mobile-Home Loan Scam

A federal grand jury indicted a former San Fernando Valley mobile home dealer Friday on charges connected with the bilking of Great Western Savings & Loan out of nearly $300,000 by filing false loan applications.

William Joseph Sere, 46, faces 18 years in prison and $45,000 in fines if convicted on all nine counts in the indictment, said Assistant U.S. Atty. David A. Katz, who handled the case.

Katz said a warrant was issued for Sere, formerly of Chatsworth, but that Sere has been missing since sometime in 1982.

Sere is accused of masterminding a loan scheme in 1981 while he owned Gene’s Mobile Homes, first of Van Nuys and later of Canyon Country.

Katz said Sere filled out nine loan applications from Great Western’s Northridge office to finance the sale of mobile homes that weren’t actually sold to the listed borrowers.

Instead, Katz said, Sere kept the cash, used part of it to make regular loan payments himself, then resold some of the same mobile homes to other buyers despite the Great Western lien on them.

The original borrowers were actually people that Sere paid for the use of their names, Katz said.

He said the loan applications listed false occupations and non-existent down payments.

Katz said Great Western discovered the scheme when Sere made a bookkeeping error, and several of his loan-payment checks bounced.

In 1983, Katz said, Great Western obtained a $627,000 civil judgment against Sere in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Sere apparently acquired the mobile home dealership in 1980 and had previously worked there as a salesman.