Eric Gonzalez, the district attorney for Brooklyn, revealed on Wednesday that a woman had been sentenced to three and a half to seven years in jail for taking over $959,000 from nine victims in a bogus real estate investment scheme.
Prosecutors said that Regine Norman, 69, also known as Regine Ellis, was mandated to make reparation payments totaling $842,000. On January 31, she entered a guilty plea to three counts of third-degree grand theft and six counts of second-degree grand theft.
In accordance with the investigation, Norman conducted a real estate fraud scheme between May 2018 and September 2020.
She typically pretended to be a member of a private real estate auction in order to give her victims the impression that she could purchase properties at a discount in Brooklyn and the surrounding New York area.
After she had the down payment, Norman gave her victims fraudulent contracts of sale that frequently had the forged signature of the real property owner.
Norman never used the money to buy any real estate. Instead, she persuaded her victims to wire her money for the down payment on the properties.
Authorities reported that more than twelve of the residences were in Brooklyn.
Furthermore, Norman’s purported membership in the private auction company, “NY Private Auction Inc.,” is not listed as a commercial entity in the Department of State’s database.
Norman gave her victims minimal information about the secret auction, informing many of them that only members may attend and communicate with anyone there.
Investigators have found that the real owners of the different properties Norman claimed were up for auction never listed them for sale at auction and never hired the defendant as a broker or agent with the power to purchase or sell their properties.
Many victims asked that Norman return their money over and over because they thought they had been duped.
Norman, according to the prosecution, kept onto the money of his victims for a long time before giving it all back to four of them using money taken from more recent victims and paying three other victims a share of the money that had been pilfered.
Norman has not given any money back to any of the seven victims.
“With today’s sentencing this defendant has been brought to justice. The defendant sought to take advantage of Brooklyn’s rising real estate values to steal money from investors. I would caution individuals to carefully consider with whom they invest their savings,” District Attorney Gonzalez stated.
