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affinity fraud: Murrieta Men Agree to Prison in Fraud Case - 01/26/11 11:11 AM
Murrieta men agree to prison in fraud case
The headline was exciting yesterday when news of our long-time resident scam artists started to trickle out. The authors of a $142 million dollar ponzi scheme & investment fraud have been in jail awaiting this moment for the past 1 1/2 years and now start to look forward to doing the rest of their time.
Long-time readers will be familiar with the Stonewood case, wherein these perpetrators enticed hundreds of people to invest in real estate. But not just invest - they were talked into buying homes for $100,000 or more … (3 comments)

affinity fraud: Long awaited Riverside County Mortgage Fraud Trial gets Underway. - 11/10/10 03:22 PM
At long last the trial has begun for the perpetrators of the so-called Stonewood Scam in Southwest Riverside County. Long time readers are acquainted with the basics of this story from my years-long chronicle of events. Our local association tried to bring this to the attention of law enforcement beginning in late 2004 but were unsuccessful in catching anybodys ear until the scam had nearly run its course and started to collapse under its own weight. 
The real estate part of it consisted of representatives from Stonewood Financial buying homes at significant premiums over asking price. As this was at a time … (2 comments)

affinity fraud: $18 Million Ponzi / Affinity Schemer Gets 12+ Years & $6.8 Million Fine. - 01/21/09 12:47 AM
Once in awhile they do get caught. Sometimes it seems like not often enough but then one comes out of the woodwork like this. Over 600 investors were taken advantage of! Promised returns of up to 50% in as little as a months time! My sweet Lord, people – does this not strike ANYBODY as being pretty far out there? Don’t these ‘investors’ bear some responsibility  just for being unusually, oh I don’t know…GULLIBLE? Or would greedy & stupid be more to the point. 
And to make matters worse, in addition to a classic Ponzi scheme, plus taking advantage of people … (5 comments)