Deschutes County, Ore. – An arrest has been made in a local major real estate and mortgage fraud crime ring. Mark Franklin Broeg was arrested Wednesday after being indicted by a Deschutes County grand jury on numerous felony charges related to both mortgage and rental fraud schemes.
Broeg faces seven felony counts including Racketeering, Mortgage Fraud, and other theft related charges.
A co-defendant in the case is Michelle Marie Anderson. Anderson is a licensed realtor with Artisan Realty Group, LLC in Sisters, Oregon. Ms. Anderson is charged with multiple felony counts of Theft of Services, Attempted Aggravated Theft, Forgery, and Negotiating a Bad Check.
The charges are the result of a several month investigation, including the Deschutes County District Attorney’s office, the State of Oregon Department of Consumer & Business Services-Finance & Corporate Securities Division, and the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office.
The investigation uncovered an ongoing mortgage fraud scheme, implemented by Mr. Broeg. According to State investigators, Mr. Broeg created a fictitious business, McCoy Capital, which he used in an attempt to obtain fraudulent loans and illegal commissions, while posing as a mortgage broker. These illegal business activities included attempts to fraudulently purchase both residential and development properties here in Deschutes County, valued in total over $5 million dollars.
Co-defendant, Ms. Anderson is alleged to have obtained the assistance of Mr. Broeg in one transaction, in which she attempted to complete a fraudulent home purchase. In addition, Ms. Anderson is alleged to have been involved in her own ongoing rental scam, defrauding landlords in Sisters of thousands of dollars over the course of 2015.
“Real estate is one of the backbones of the central Oregon economy,” said Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel. “On behalf of our community’s thousands of honest and hardworking real estate professionals; tens of thousands of real estate investors; and hundreds of thousands of homeowners and tenants, all of whom rely and depend on our real estate professionals to be ethical and law-abiding, your District Attorney’s office will continue to root out fraud in the real estate industry and hold offenders accountable.”
