Back in July of 2008, I reported that Steve Berman had pleaded guilty to price fixing at Maryland tax lien auctions. Others were implicated at the time. Many of us active in local tax lien sales have been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Jack Stollof has pleaded guilty to fixing bids at Maryland tax sales. His partner Havey Nusbaum is scheduled to go to trial in March. Nusbaum and Stollof were indicted in June of last year.
Jack Stollof’s plea comes after the Judge in the case threw out their defense that they had formed a “Joint Venture” and told that to the bank that was financing them. He is expect ed to be sentenced after Harvey Nusbaum’s trial. They could both receive up to ten years in prison and a fine of up to 1 million dollars.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Homar Marchebout // Feb 6, 2011 at 12:44 am
You are lucky enough to live in a place where the authorities are honest and do their job. Carlstadt, NJ corrupt public officials robbed my partner and me of our house through a rigged tax sale, and on tax debt that their collector could not even prove existed… The official audits for the years claimed by the municipality as “delinquent” deny the existence of any debt in our RE tax account. Our own RE tax account records, which would prove decisively whether we were actually in arrears or current with our tax payments are being concealed by the town, despite subpoenas and OPRA requests from us for their production.
There is even sworn, undisputed testimony by bidders present at the tax sale who witnessed the collector withdraw our tax lien from its otherwise lawful sale, without public announcement on whether its sale would resume, nor when, as demanded by law. The collector admitted to me, years after the tax sale, during the foreclosure process with which the purchaser of our tax lien surprised us, that he had sold our tax lien after tax sale hours and outside of public bidding to a friend of his, who was also uncle to one of the Carlstadt councilmen, because “someone called him on the day of the tax sale”, wanting to “help us retain our interest in our property” by “redeeming our delinquent taxes”… But, since that person never showed up, after the tax sale was over, his friend stopped by to see if there were “any liens left”, and since ours was the only one, the collector sold it to him. How convenient.
And yet, no court, nor authority, at all, wants to do its job and act against these criminals! My partner is an elderly, ill man, so I guess they are just hoping he’ll die soon… It’s a dark day for America when our authorities abide by public corruption.
2 Ned // Mar 28, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Wow what a story. I wish you luck you choose to pursue it. Perhaps the papers or news media would be interested. News media is always looking for a good story.
Ned