Foreclosure Shatters The Life Of Mentally Challenged Man

July 16th, 2008

The story of 51-year-old Stephen unfolds in Long Beach California. From early childhood he had been suffering from mild schizophrenia and paranoia. He became the unfortunate victim of foreclosure fraud and cheating. He lost his property with every bit of furniture and valuables. His house has been mortgaged without any hope of redemption. The three people who had cheated him were subsequently convicted and penalized.

Cheats, fraudsters and scammers have neither caste nor creed. In this case it happened to be a gypsy group at the root of the trouble. People in general are fascinated with the gypsies – their fortune telling and dancing with tambourines. But unfortunately many of them belong to organized criminal gangs. Detective Stacy Holdredege informed that they are something like the Mafia. Of late they are specializing in foreclosure crimes.

On Long Beach there are three big gypsy groups comprising of 200 individuals. With the foreclosure crisis raging, there has been an increase in gypsy type of scams. The case of Stephen has given an impetus to the police force to streamline their investigations making it more effective to target the gypsies. The police to denote this ethnic group’s criminal activities have adopted the code ‘G’. It will help the police to keep facts and figures about gypsy related crime for the first time.

Gypsies prefer to be known as the Rom. They are found across the globe. The criminals among them focus on elders and the vulnerable like Stephen. The latter became the right target for this ‘sweetheart crime.’ The method is to approach the victim using the ruse that an elder sibling is looking for them. Or they will claim that the spouse of the victim knew them. Usually they choose a prey that has memory problems or similar lapses. They tempt people with hope of finding companionship and love. Once the victim has been milked dry the ‘friend’ vanishes leaving the victim penniless and helplessly alone.

A trio named Peter, Tony and Marianne in July 2007 approached Stephen. They claimed to be siblings and that Marianne wanted to marry Stephen, who never had had a girl friend till date. The trio moved into his house in August and started to borrow money against the house. That apart they stole whatever they could. Credit cards were used up to their limits. If detectives had not scented trouble Stephen could have been in worse trouble – if that was possible. Today foreclosure is closing in on Stephen.