A Long Island woman was convicted by a jury in Queens Supreme Court on a slew of charges for her role in a notorious deed theft crew that targeted homes owned by vulnerable seniors in Southeast Queens, Attorney General Letitia James announced on Friday. Stacie Saunders, a former mortgage bank branch manager from Central Islip in Suffolk County, was found guilty on all charges following a two-week trial on Thursday, May 8.
The licensed real estate saleswoman is the fifth and final defendant to be convicted in the Office of the Attorney General’s (OAG) investigation into the deed theft ring led by fellow Long Islander Marcus Wilcher, of Bay Shore, for stealing three homes in Jamaica and St. Albans.
Saunders marketed the targeted homes to investors at prices significantly below the market rate for quick sales after the ringleader, Wilcher, located homes that were in poor or run-down conditions with absentee owners. Disbarred real estate attorney Anyekache Hercules of New Rochelle created forged legal documents used to steal and then sell the properties. After an investor expressed interest in purchasing a home, Wilcher would secure personal information about the real estate owners, including Social Security numbers and birth dates, to create falsified driver’s licenses, Social Security cards, and bank cards. Wilcher then found people to impersonate the owners of the properties at contract signings and closings.
Saunders arranged attorneys, collected closing documents, and scheduled the closings to fraudulently sell the homes. After the sales were finalized, the defendants opened bank accounts in the names of the homes’ real owners and used the bank accounts and other entities and LLCs they controlled to funnel more than $1 million in proceeds to themselves and co-conspirators Jerry Currin of the Bronx and Dean Lloyd of Pennsylvania. The five co-defendants were arrested and indicted in December 2022. Saunders was found guilty by the jury on 18 counts, including grand larceny, attempted grand larceny, forgery, and other related crimes. She will be sentenced on June 11. The maximum sentence on the top count is five to 15 years in prison.
“With the conviction of Stacie Saunders, my office is proud to have secured justice for the elderly New Yorkers that Saunders and her co-conspirators targeted with their predatory scheme,” James said.
Wilcher was convicted in July 2024 of grand larceny in the second degree and sentenced to up to nine years in prison for the theft of five homes in July 2024. Hercules, who was previously convicted in 2018 of grand larceny in Brooklyn, pleaded guilty to scheme to defraud and was sentenced to one and a half to three years’ imprisonment. Currin and Lloyd pleaded guilty to felony counts of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree.
“Deed theft is a heartless crime that targets the most valuable assets in vulnerable communities,” James said. “We will always work to keep New Yorkers in their homes.”
