Adolfo Schoneke, 43, of Torrance, and his sister, Bianca Gonzalez, a.k.a. Blanca Schoneke, 38, of Walnut, California, were arrested today on federal charges of orchestrating a $6 million property fraud scheme in which they advertised houses without the homeowners’ permission and received money from numerous would-be buyers in each of the not-for-sale properties.
Schoneke and Gonzalez, according to the indictment, ran real estate and escrow firms in Cerritos, La Palma, and Long Beach, California, under a number of different names, including MCR and West Coast, with the assistance of co-conspirators. According to the complaint, Schoneke and Gonzalez discovered premises to sell – even though many of them wasn’t for sale and they didn’t have the right to do so – and then sold the homes as short sales, offering chances to buy at below-market rates.
Schoneke and Gonzalez are accused of using other people’s broker licenses to advertise the assets on real estate websites like the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). The homes were sold in some cases, according to the indictment, by open houses that co-conspirators were able to hold after duping residents into allowing their residences to be used.
The co-conspirators allegedly received several bids for any of the not-for-sale premises as part of the suspected scam, concealing this truth from the victims and causing each victim to conclude that his or her bid was the only one accepted. The suspected co-conspirators were able to keep the plaintiffs waiting – often for years – by convincing them that closings were being postponed because banks refused to approve the supposed short sales.
Schoneke and Gonzalez are both accused of ordering office staff to open bank accounts under their names, according to the complaint. After getting forged short selling clearance documents, victims were persuaded to pass the entire “purchase price” to these bank accounts. Schoneke and Gonzalez are both accused of instructing office staff to transfer huge sums of money from these accounts and hand it over to them, allowing them to take advantage of the scam money while concealing their participation in the scheme.
Several hundred claimants are estimated to have lost more than $6 million as a result of the scam, according to investigators.
They pleaded not guilty to nine counts in an indictment unsealed following their arrests this afternoon. Schoneke and Gonzalez are charged with one count of conspiracy, seven counts of wire fraud, and one count of felony identity theft in the indictment.
A trial date was set for June 1, 2021, during the arraignments this afternoon. Both inmates will be held in jail until their detention proceedings, which are set for Friday for Schoneke and April 13, 2021 for Gonzalez, accordingly.
An indictment is a legal document that alleges that a suspect has committed a felony. Unless and unless proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, a suspect is presumed innocent.
Schoneke and Gonzalez both face a potential term of 162 years in federal prison if convicted of all counts.
