Attorney and realtor arrested in ‘home theft’

Talk about having the rug pulled from under you.
A suspended Richmond Hill attorney and a licensed Queens Village real estate broker have been charged with selling the house out from under an elderly Jamaica man — who had been hospitalized after suffering a stroke — and then repeatedly flipping the property to drive up the price.
“The defendants are accused of participating in a carefully orchestrated real estate scheme that netted them hundreds of thousands of dollars in mortgage loan proceeds,” said District Attorney Richard A. Brown. “[It] involved everything from ‘straw’ buyers to ‘show’ checks to keep the unsuspecting homeowners from learning the truth — that their houses were being stolen right out from under them.”
Attorney N. Stephen Sukhdeo, 41, of 149-50 124th Street in South Ozone Park, and Mohammed M. Keita, 48, of Baldwin, Long Island are both awaiting arraignment in Queens Criminal Court on charges of second-degree grand larceny, second-degree forgery, first-degree falsifying business records and first-degree offering a false instrument for filing.
Sukhdeo, who maintains a law practice at 105-08 Jamaica Avenue in Richmond Hill, is additionally charged with criminal possession of forged documents.
A yearlong investigation conducted by the DA and the New York Police Department’s Special Frauds Squad is alleged to have revealed that, in 2002, Clifford Goss, 78, entered into a verbal agreement with Keita to purchase his property at 106-43 156th Street in Jamaica. At the time, Keita was a licensed real estate broker in Queens Village.
However, prior to the execution of a contract of sale, Goss suffered a debilitating stroke and was hospitalized. Upon his recovery, he learned that his house had been sold and transferred to an entity known as Cornerstone Properties, Inc.
In reviewing the business records, Brown said, it was determined that a deed was recorded in February 2003 that stated Goss had sold his property to Cornerstone Properties, Inc., for no consideration and that the attorney representing the company was Sukhdeo, who previously had been Goss’s attorney.
In fact, according to the criminal charges, Goss’s signature on the deed is alleged to have been forged, as he had never entered into an agreement nor authorized the sale of his property to Cornerstone — which is owned by Thaneshwar Sukhdeo, the brother of the defendant — nor did he receive any proceeds from the sale. As a result, Goss lost more than $200,000, the fair market value of his house.
Cornerstone subsequently sold the property to Kaiby Keita — the daughter of the second defendant — for $310,000; Sukhdeo represented her at the transaction. At the closing, Cornerstone Properties allegedly received a check for $129,379.66 from the proceeds of the sale.
However, a review of Sukhdeo’s escrow account at North Fork Bank indicated that the check made payable to Cornerstone Properties was never distributed to the company, but instead deposited into the defendant’s account for his own benefit.
Among the other funds disbursed during the closing, it is alleged that Kaiby Keita drew two disbursement checks ($10,000 and $13,900) on her Bank of America account made payable to Cornerstone Properties toward the purchase price. However, the checks were never negotiated.
According to the DA, such checks are commonly referred to as “show” checks in a mortgage fraud scheme.
They are displayed at a closing to reflect that the seller has been given money by the buyer, and that the money has been placed in the seller’s attorney’s account. Such checks would never be negotiated, the DA said, they merely are presented and made part of the closing documents so that the mortgage scheme can be carried out.
The deed to Goss’s property was then allegedly transferred from Kaiby Keita to her father for no consideration. Sukhdeo again served as the closing attorney.
Keita then sold the property to another individual on March 6, 2006, for $650,000.
If convicted, Sukhdeo and Keita face up to 15 years in prison.