Judge Steps in at Troubled Univest Home Loan : Courts: Jurist names official to locate assets and handle claims of investors, whose losses may reach into the millions of dollars.
Amid allegations of forgery and theft, a Los Angeles judge Wednesday appointed a temporary receiver to manage the troubled affairs of Univest Home Loan Inc., a real estate lender that is under siege by regulators and investors whose losses may reach well into the millions of dollars.
Acting on a request by the state attorney general’s office, Superior Court Judge Robert H. O’Brien appointed Los Angeles attorney David L. Ray to serve as receiver, and ordered Univest and two of its officials to cease soliciting investments in real estate loans.
As receiver, Ray’s job will be to locate assets and process claims of investors, some of whom say they lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
State authorities sought the receivership last Friday, when they filed suit against Univest and the two officers--company president Ruth Yonemoto, and chairman and treasurer Joel Burakoff. The suit, filed on behalf of the state Department of Real Estate, seeks to compel Univest, Yonemoto and Burakoff to reimburse any investor losses linked to violations of state real estate laws.
“We got what we wanted,” said Deputy Attorney General David S. Chaney, after the order appointing the receiver was issued. “I know investors want a lot more, but we’re not at that stage yet.” Attorneys for Univest and Yonemoto also appeared Wednesday, but did not contest the order.
In addition to the lawsuit, the real estate department has filed an administrative complaint seeking to revoke Yonemoto’s real estate broker’s license. Yonemoto, through her attorney, has denied any wrongdoing.
The matter also has been referred to the Los Angeles County district attorney for investigation.
Authorities have declined to estimate the number of victims or size of losses, saying they will know more once the receiver gets to work. But private attorneys for some investors say dozens of people together have been cheated out of millions of dollars.
Over the years, Gardena-based Univest has done a brisk business finding investors to fund high-interest, and relatively high-risk, second and third mortgage loans. A recent audit by the state real estate department found that Univest was servicing about 600 loans with monthly collections of $900,000.
In recent months, however, monthly payment checks to investors allegedly began bouncing, and some investors discovered that the loans they were told they had funded did not exist.
According to their allegations, some of these “phantom” loans never existed, while others had been paid off and the funds diverted instead of being paid to the investors. In either case, investors allegedly continued to be paid monthly interest to trick them into thinking the loans were in force.
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The “phantom” loan allegations have focused mainly on Burakoff--until recently, a member of the Friars Club board of directors who is said to have used his position in the prominent social club to enlist such victims as singer Tony Martin and Friars Club President Irwin Schaeffer.
Schaeffer’s attorney Edward G. Lewis, himself a Friars vice president, said only a fraction of the victims are members of the club.
Burakoff, who is listed in county voting records as a resident of Woodland Hills, is said to be under a doctor’s care and unavailable for comment. But his lawyer George Buehler predicted Wednesday that Burakoff will be exonerated.
“I believe that the evidence in this case . . . will show that everything Joel did was [intended] to see that none of the investors lost any money.”
In a sworn declaration filed by the attorney general on Wednesday, Schaeffer said that since 1986, he and members of his family have invested more than $3 million with their “trusted advisor and friend” Burakoff--only to discover in recent weeks that “less than half of our investment remains.”
According to the declaration, Schaeffer discovered that “Burakoff and/or Univest” had diverted loan payoff funds “while continuing to make purported interest payments . . . in an apparent effort to conceal the fact that the loans on those properties had been sold, foreclosed out or never existed in the first place.”
In addition, the declaration said, Schaeffer’s endorsement had been forged on payoff checks that were deposited in one of Burakoff’s personal accounts.
Another exhibit filed in court was correspondence from alleged victim Stanley B. Schneider, who said his endorsement was forged on a $71,000 payoff check that was diverted to a Burakoff account.
Shlomo Gardosh, another alleged victim, has lost $150,000, Gardosh’s attorney Leonard Steiner told The Times. Steiner said Gardosh’s signature was forged on at least two loan payoff checks that were diverted to other accounts.
