American Greed 2017 Real Estate Fraud: Does You Home Belong to You? (Radioplay)

In October 2009, six FBI agents take shovels to this Country Club golf course in an upscale northern Kentucky suburb. 46 steps from the third tee they have been told lies about buried treasure. There are about 46 steps. Let's run right in front of this this tree. FBI. Special Agent Kevin Gormley has just returned after being summoned to a federal prison in Coleman, Florida, by renowned

home

builder and convicted

fraud

ster Bill Urban Beck. He hopes to get a reduction in his prison sentence. Burpin Beck tells Gormley that he wants to be honest about the money. had hidden in 2002 while being investigated for the $34 million

fraud

bill said he wanted to be able to start his life over once he got out of prison at the time he thought he would only go to prison for a couple of years burp The story of Rick takes Gormley to the top of Hills Country Club.

The Gormley stuff pays a lot is just moments away, but after five hours of unsuccessful digging, it seems to some of Gormley's fellow agents that this fantastic story is just a fantasy that was getting a lot. harassment like each of our pasts we weren't going to find and of course, but I was sure we wouldn't leave until we found it. Bill Urban Beck's promise of buried treasure is all that remains after nearly a decade of lies and theft. a scam that has sent seven people to prison and taken approximately $69 million from banks for

home

buyers and construction contractors in Cincinnati and Kentucky, but as former golf buddy and next-door neighbor Glen attests Fagan, it didn't start out that way.

The Bill Urban Beck Fraud. begins with an air of success, although Arpan Beck had a gift and his gift was to persuade you that not only are you going to do business with him, but that it is the best thing you have ever done in your life, the urban Beck family has been building . trust along with homes for decades Bill's grandfather was named Home Builder of the Year in 1965 by the Northern Kentucky Home Builders Association and Bill's father, Tony, followed in the same footsteps, slowly building up his own reputation, a home at the same time, as would be expected from Tony Urban. just to build your house, but maybe get on the bulldozer to level the yard when you're done, it's just the most practical, sensible guide, we always used to joke that he's, you know, the millionaire who drives the you know Chevette , but you old timers are too modest for grandson bill's urban bed.

He has much bigger plans. I think he wanted to go from obscurity to number one homebuilder and Northern Kentucky's Bill Urban Beck wants to take the Urban Beck name to the world. In the modern era it will no longer be one family building one house at a time, Beck Urban Company begins building entire subdivisions and condo projects and with great success in 2002, Beck Urban Company has built hundreds of homes and is earning almost $100 million a year and, in stark contrast to his father's bill of frugality, Irfan Beck now has a million-dollar house and a fancy car, giving the image that urban enterprise Beck is on the top of the world.

He was the third greatest builder. in Greater Cincinnati at the time he was recommended by many people in the community, including my employer. Linda Harlow purchases an open house in October 2000 and quickly becomes friends with one of her neighbors across the street, who turns out to be an urban employee of the Beck company. One afternoon in April 2002, however, this neighbor wanted to talk and asked me if she could come to my house that night and talk to me and I said: well, of course you can, we cross the street every night to talk to me and she said No, this is more serious.

Harlow's friend has inside information about shady dealings taking place within Beck's urban company and she feels compelled to tell Harlow that there is a problem with her house. She proceeded to tell me that my house had multiple mortgages and I told her. Why would that be the case? I already paid for my house. I had closure. I paid and my lender handed over my house payment. When Harlow takes out a mortgage to buy her home, she hopes her mortgage company will make sure she receives a check from the closing that is delivered to her pen. Beck's lender the check is intended to pay off the entire mortgage Urban Beck took on to build. a house first unfortunately that's not what happens thanks to Urban Beck Closing Agent Michelle Marksberry Michelle Marks was asked the closing period if she could take the check to the construction lender because it would save a day of interest it sounds like a request reasonable at the time, but looking back on that day, Harlow remembers something suspicious, it was Halloween, October 31, and I remember Michelle saying that as soon as she came out of lockdown she needed to rush home and get her daughter dressed to go to trick-or-treating and then he caught himself and said, I mean, as soon as I hand this check to the bank, it's telling. slip marks Berry has no intention of handing the check to the construction lender to pay Urban Beck's original mortgage, he is putting it directly to the open company that verifies the work and with Urban Beck's mortgage still open, means that Harlow's house now has two mortgages on it and billing the urban banks for Harlow, the situation is dire, she could diligently pay her mortgage for 30 years and still face the threat of Beck's urban lender taking her house, they could foreclose even though I had bought and paid for it. my house and had been living there, but for Urban Back, coming out of the closing with the check not payable to him is the easy part for the scam to

real

ly pay off.

Urban Beck needs to be able to deposit it. Harlow asks his friend the obvious question. If I can't deposit a check that is not payable to me, why would opening BEC be able to pull a check from the closing table payable to another bank and deposit it into her own bank account and she said the bank is not? only the bank, the bank is People are looking for a reason why people in authority at the bank would allow that to happen for home buyers like Linda Harlow, who bought her house from Urban Beck Company in the fall of 2000, it means that Urban Beck's original mortgage has not been paid and his lender still has a lien on his house and Harlow

does

not, as the FBI and federal prosecutors later discover.

Urban Beck has run this scam more than 250 times in the previous three years $434 million and home buyers are not the only ones left in the urban darkness Beck manages to prevent his lenders from asking questions too and the effort included continuing to pay interest to construction lenders about the loans so they are less likely to

real

ize that they owe Closings have been paid and Urban Beck is still making monthly payments. Their lenders do not know that the properties have been sold and simply keep the mortgages active to open them again to profit from the scam. You need help depositing checks that are not in your name.

He knows exactly where to find it, the evidence developed by the FBI was that John Finan, who was the president of People's Bank in Northern Kentucky, had marked many of his vice presidents and conspired with Bill Urban Beck to accept those deposits. in Urban Beck's counts at open bank beck has maintained his company's bank account at People's Bank for years long enough, in fact, his relationship with bankers extends beyond that of a typical banker in client one of the bankers lived on our street we, Gogh, together every Sunday, I thought, John Finn and Bill Urban were as good friends as Bill and I, but being in close relationship with Bill Urban Beck is playing with fire in February 2001, are faced with the fact that Urban Mexican's account at their bank is overdrawn by six million. dollars is a surprising revelation from a company that is one of the largest home builders in the region until what it is looking for to bill or Ben Beck's lifestyle began to progress.

Bill's appetite for the spotlight grew and so did his appetite for good things. in life he got bigger he had a couple of motorcycles two homeless golf carts a Mercedes golf cart the golf carts had televisions there were probably double digits and televisions in that house it had the capacity to be a theater with twenty broken lounge chairs on top and a racing center for those cars that they would race against each other, yeah, there wasn't much you couldn't do in that basement, and then all of that led to the pool which, honestly, you knew at the time the pool was there. probably one of the most beautiful pools I have ever seen.

I mean, you know that cave. I mean, people had a pool with a cave in their backyard in 2001, the money coming in can't keep up with the money going out, but urban Beck has a plan, his former Kentucky Post reporter, Bob Treehouse, explains that Urban Beck convinces his two good friends, John Finan and Mark Many, to get the popular banks to lend him the six million dollars that he has overdraft in his account. It was another great sales job. He said, "Hey, look, we have." many houses are coming online, we were in a cash crisis right now and I just need you to cover me with these millions of dollars and overdrafts, fennan and many sneaked around the board of directors of the people's bank to return the money. but before long they find themselves falling down a slippery slope.

Assistant U.S. Attorney AJ Walburn later prosecuted Finan and many others for their roles in the fraud. I think they probably panicked more and more. They were into it. Six millions. What do we do? Will we be the only ones? The way to get out of this hole is to keep making more money. They are six million dollar problems that turned into thirty-four million dollar frogs and grow from there. Fenton and many approach other Kentucky banks and illegally trick them into lending openly. Another twenty-nine million dollars was representing that the compact company was healthy when in reality it was a bottomless pit, then there is the most destructive act that his bank allows to open to take almost two hundred checks that are not in his name and in his place of Using them to pay their construction mortgages deposits them into their own bank accounts, leaving hundreds of home buyers in the same situation as Linda Harlow facing the threat of losing their homes.

John Marker, both honorable men and I, still believe that to this day I think what happened is you have John and Mark trying to make this work and maybe it will turn around and everyone will pick themselves up and move on, but this is that the company was out of control, so out of control in fact that by April 2002 the stolen deposits and ill-gotten loans had ballooned into a sixty-nine million dollar fraud when American

greed

returned if its banker friends hope for a change in the urban bill Beck may be lost because he starts looking back and it's going well yeah the guy was on vacation 20 weeks a year you know the guy was at the bar every night drinking you know he ran this Empire, if she were doing all this in the spring of 2002, home building giant Bill Urban, Beck is the mastermind of a Among the victims are more than 250 home buyers, more than 40 securities and 40 banks, but surprisingly, despite diverting $69 million of other people's money into his bank account, Beck cannot keep the $69 million fraud perpetrated in Cincinnati and Kentucky. company afloat the bricklayers, electricians and carpenters who build the houses began to notice the company's cash flow problems in 2001 and Beck's urban companies first were slow to pay their subcontractors and then simply stopped paying them and when they started chase home buyers to cash in on theirs, fraud exposes charles and sherry mitchell wide open for their three bedroom open house in independence kentucky in 2001 we went to every builder, we looked at every model home, we went to them all house festivals and then when we found this one, of course This is perfect, but just a few months after moving in, the Mitchells received the worst housewarming gift in the world.

Two liens filed against your house by frustrated subcontractors. It seems that Bill Urban Becky hired them but never paid them. One of the lanes is only $100 but the other one is for over 22,000 I thought it was a joke and said oh that can't happen. I didn't believe it, but we found out it was true. For the Mitchells, the situation is dire, with liens filed against their house, it could be repossessed through no fault of their own. It is an unthinkable outcome. All the money we have was spent just to get into this house. We didn't have any.

We were out. Charles Mitchell personally calls the pin deck builder to resolve liens. I called him and spoke to him briefly on the phone and he told me it was a big mistake, he apologized and everything and he'll fix it. Urban Beck actually pays the liens, butMitchell soon realized those are just the first ones. Cracks in the Foundation Like hundreds of other home buyers, the Mitchells discover that Urban Deck never paid off their original loan and they could lose their new home again. We go through the hate we go through. We were a little hysterical. We were afraid.

We were outraged. We were all these things. The Mitchells hired attorney Brandon Volker to handle his case. This was the actual statement of the mechanics and materials lien the Mitchells received and ironically it was over $100. Kinda, did they know at the time it was substantially more? money at stake with your house besides this hundred dollars when you boil it down to the basics it's pure stupidity it's pure theft you say it's as simple as a person walking into a store and stealing and just walking out with the item you know I didn't even try to hide it, I just carried it out triumphantly.

I just robbed you in a store. That's essentially what was happening with our bank. Volcker files a class action lawsuit on behalf of Mitchells, but

does

not pursue Urban Beck. He sues People's.Bank for allowing Urban Back to divert checks not payable to him to his company bank account while Volcker contacts title agencies and banks. News of the frog falls spreads throughout the home building industry and Urban Beck knows the fraud is coming to an end for the banks on a title. The company had discovered what Bill Urban Beck was doing, confronted him about it, and perhaps decided it was best for him to come forward to the government before the government came to him when American

greed

returned.

Bill Lerp and Beck try to stay ahead of the frauds. investigation and does it in an embarrassingly dramatic way, it seemed like something out of a mafia movie, almost father and son pressure the daughter to admit crimes that she, in the early spring of 2002, Bill Urban Beck is falling into a spiral deeper into a 69. million-dollar fraud, has been diverting home buyers' checks to his company's bank account that are intended to pay off their construction loans, leaving hundreds of home buyers holding the bag. debt and facing the possibility of losing their homes, but the outside world is catching up. he was about to be discovered because there were too many people contacting him / - many people have said he didn't have the money, it's time to pay all these people on March 22, 2002, open deck decides to come clean The government or its version of " clean anyway." Bill Erpenbach is not the kind of captain who goes down with the ship in a conference room at the U.S.

Attorney's Office in Cincinnati, he tells Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen Rickman and FBI Special Agent Kevin Gormley. the fraud was started without his knowledge by the company's accountant laurie urban beck his sister here is a dramatic performance he cried a little and tried to hide from his sister that he had had a difficult life poor Lauri, you know, she just thinks that only wanted to help Lauri Urban Beck actually has something to do with the Frog, but he is not his mastermind. His role in the fraud was primarily to deposit the checks, but he cannot handle the deception months before billing and betting the FBI.

Lori Urban Beck is leaving. In the company he no longer wanted to be involved in it, he felt more and more pressure to do things he did not want to do, however, Bill Ervin Beck determines that Lori must take the blame for the family. Lori was the only girl. with the family and we pretty much determined that she was treated like trash for most of her life the family dynamic is evident in this publicity photo for the urban company Beck is the father Tony and three of his children Lori is conspicuously absent as the government digs In Bill Urban Dex's fraud story seems hollow and it becomes clear that Lori is simply a scapegoat.

By looking at the documents and talking to the other witnesses, it became clear to us that Bill Urban Beck was involved in the plan from the beginning and was a leader of this team, but openly, he is determined to get out of the vice. He recruited banker John Finan and framed many in the fraud. Blaming his sister doesn't work, maybe he turned it over to the bankers, so the bill was working. At the time he was trying to mitigate his circumstances, so Bill came out to say that Bill gives recordings of phone conversations with Fennan and many that clearly imply that the bankers know about the fraud and that what they are doing is wrong, it seems that reporting . discovers that the bankers could work, makes a deal with the government, pleads guilty to one count of bank fraud, and in exchange for his cooperation, the government will seek a sentence much less than the maximum 30 years based on his assistance in making the tapes with Finan. and many tell us that other people's involvement would probably have reduced it to 10 years, but open-backed Bill is not one to accept a first offer.

He has more tricks up his sleeve, in typical Beck street fashion, I thought he could. manipulate the system and once again her sister Lori is the sacrificial lamb days before she testifies at Bill's sentencing hearing in February 2004. Kathleen Brickman receives shocking news from Lori's lawyer: she said her father is pressuring her to lie in this The next hearing related to Bill's sentencing, urban Major Beck asks him to take the stand and blame, but Laurie has finally had enough and agrees to wear a microphone and two nights later she meets her father while They drive through the streets of Covington.

Kentucky five FBI vehicles followed him listening to the conversation on a transmitter it was rainy it was difficult to follow them we hoped they would stay in the area unfortunately they did Tony takes Laurie to the Marriott Courtyard in Covington where the stakes are high on the upper level of the parking lot Bill Urban Beck is waiting for Bill got in the car it was just a tag team, they're asking her to take the blame to say it's happening on her watch and that she caused it, frankly, from an investigation. From my point of view, I don't think we could have written a better script ourselves, she was just directing her to do nothing but lie.

Tony told Laurie that and we need you to step up so the family bill can't go to jail, her three children. I need it and you're single, pretty much throwing Laurie under the bus, it was so sad, finally the FBI determines they've heard enough and five cars swoop in and didn't surround the crime scene and I'll never forget when I arrested Bill and approached to him, he came out and started crying, he says I'm going away for 30 years the next day, father and son are prosecuted for obstruction of justice, two months later they plead guilty and the points are charged to one. for cooperation they have already disappeared just as he predicted he sentenced to 30 years in prison Tony urban Becca sentenced to six years but it is not the last we will hear from bill open decks father when American greed returns Tony urban Beck wants revenge how far are you willing to come?

He described in graphic detail that what he wanted done were violent and violent deaths that he was calling for in the summer of 2000 to have three members of the urban Beck family in prison for their role in a 69 million war. dollar fraud and its consequences the mastermind bill urban Beck is guilty of bank fraud and obstruction of justice and two sentenced to 30 years in prison Lori urban Beck her sister pleads guilty for her minor role in the fraud and dissent to one year and her father Tony Urban Beck is sentenced by Judge Arthur Spiegel to six years for obstruction of justice after being recorded trying to convince Lori to take the blame for the fraud so he could save Bill.

Tony lived and died for Bill and that was Bill who was the allstar in that. family and he is the one who got the respect and attention of the father, Tony Urban Beck, 69, once reigned over Europe's powerful building dynasty and his return home, but now feels that both Bills' life and his son's are ruined once he took revenge in December. 2004 Tim Tracy, the FBI special agent who arrested Tony Urban on obstruction charges, received news he will never forget after Tony was sentenced on his obstruction charge and was incarcerated at Lexington Medical Center. He had made comments to another inmate about the murder.

Judge Spiegel kills Cathy Brinkman and kidnaps my children. Inmate John Collins alerts authorities and agrees to record more conversations with the urban bank assistant. U.S. Attorney Rob Duncan prosecutes the case in his first recording. Or Beckett talking to Collins about what he wants done, how he wants it, how he wants it done, the second conversation is more of the same, but there was more detail, there seems to be a little more level of specificity and layman's language to repeat urban Beck tells Collins that he wants the bodies of Attorney Brinkman and Judge Spiegel mutilated with body parts cut off or shot off.

His plan for Special Agent Tracy's children is even more sadistic: he says he wants the eight- and twelve-year-old children to be buried alive in coffins. with a pipe coming to the surface for air and enough water and cookies to allow them to survive trapped and terrified underground for two full weeks simply from the torture, it's one thing to threaten me. It has happened to me several times. I am armed I can take care of myself the threatening family is different the inmate John Collins makes Arpan believe again that he is capable of carrying out the threats an urban Beck lets him know he is serious I talked about the price and the payment of 500,000 dollars initially and then an additional amount if it was done and completed I think that was when mr.

Berg made a statement about four takes and a million, it takes a million, yes, knowing it will be made public, Tracee decides she needs to tell her children about the threats, they were just shocked that someone could be so bad, but she didn't mind. I counted everything. but she finally she appeared in the paper, my oldest son read it and sue was quite upset, i mean, if she had talked to anyone other than mr. Collins, who knows what would have happened, fortunately all that happens is that on April 7, 2005, Tony Arpan Beck is charged with seven counts related to the plot.

He goes to trial eight months later, his statement was: he was not serious, he was afraid. Collins' claim that he was afraid of going to prison and that he never intended to carry out the threats could possibly be a persuasive argument until the jury hears the tapes. I think they resonated, they certainly resulted in at least some of his conviction. Tony Urban Beck Found Guilty of Four Counts of Solicitation for Threatening to Kill a Federal Judge and a Federal Law Enforcement Officer and Threatening to Kidnap Family Members of a Federal Officer, Extends His Total Prison Sentence to 20 Years Again It seems that urban housing has no other options, but that would be to underestimate its insane creativity in the summer of 2009, the former housing project that the Giants built and Tony Urban Backs imprisoned in federal prisons serving long sentences for his participation in a fraud sixty-nine million dollars and its consequences.

Lorie Herpen Beck has served a sentence of one. one-year sentence for her role in the fraud and has been released Urban Beck closing agent Michelle Marksberry has pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and is serving two years. She has also been released. Bill's brothers, Gary and Jeff Urban Beck, are under investigation for the fraud, but for the hundreds of homebuyers represented in Brandon Volkers' class action lawsuit against People's Bank, there is even a happy ending: the bank that allowed illegal deposits into the account Urban Beck pays all construction mortgages that Urban Beck had left to home buyers on my clients' homes.

They went through a lot, but they got what they were supposed to have gotten from day one, their house free and clear. It's something Charles and Sherry Mitchell, the initiators of the lawsuit, can be proud of. It felt good because we not only helped ourselves, but we helped a lot. from other people it was a good feeling yeah I can only speak for myself I mean I felt good about it unfortunately for Linda Harlow she has to deal with the fallout from Urban Beck's years of fraud because her pinback He never paid off his original construction loan.

The house is loaded with an overwhelming amount of debt. I had two hundred and forty thousand dollars on a house worth one hundred and forty-two. She declares bankruptcy and moves away from the house. She sometimes she just can't give away the house. I tried to give it to him. clear title for my bank, they couldn't accept it. I tried to return a title to the Urban Backs lender, they couldn't accept it. In the end, she finds recourse by suing her mortgage company, which she believes botched the closing by failing to fulfill its responsibility to make I am sure the next open loan was eventually paid off and resolved favorably.

In my case, you can't take back the frustration, but you know that I learned a lot fromit. Popular Bank, which is very profitable before the fraud is busted, is unable to recover from the money they owe from the lawsuits and is finally sold in June 2000 on the John Finan and Mark forum. Many plead guilty to three counts related to bank fraud and serve five years and four and a half years respectively on all the urban bills Beck leaves behind. He leaves a trail of destruction that lands six people in prison, four combined sentences of more than 60 years, and defrauded banks, title companies, and homeowners of more than sixty million dollars in November 2005.

Perpend Beck speaks with a Cincinnati news station from a prison in Florida to make one last sales pitch for sympathy we all made mistakes I made John marked Did you know I've thought about it a thousand times since then? I would have only thought of one thing. I just saw the client first, I didn't think about everything else, but four years later I gave my opinion. That things he suffered enough in August 2009 in hopes of being considered for a lesser sentence, he contacts Special Agent Gormley to tell him about the personal assets he had kept hidden during the original investigation.

Gormley heads to the Federal Correctional Institute in Coleman, Florida, to speak with her. pin Beck well what he told us was that he wasn't honest with me when he spoke to me at first what a surprise but what he told me is that he gave money to Steve Skidmore Steve Skidmore was an open friend of Beck and next door neighbor in 2002, when Open Beck was first investigated and is now exhausted. Skidmore bought the house from Beck's former urban neighbor, Glen Fagan, when Fagan moved in in 1999. Bill was one of those guys who focused on someone, there was always someone he rotated around. him off the bike by getting under his wing and taking him for a ride, but rides with the urban back have a way of getting bumpy in prison in urban Florida.

Beck tells Special Agent Gormley a story from back in 2002, he said he went golfing with Steve Skidmore and They talked in the car and he said Hi, I have some money, I don't know how to handle it and Steve offered to edit him Urban Back and tells the gourmet that the money is gone. In a soft-sided refrigerator from an open-net company that doesn't know what Skidmore did with it, Gormley returns to Kentucky and hatches a plan to get his secret out of Steve Skidmore, Special Agent recruits Bills' brother, Jeff Urban Beck, to wear a wire and tell Skidmore that the Urban Robots are desperate for cash and need to know where he hid the money.

Steve said more and finally admitted after a while that he's okay, this is legit. I need to get this money to Bill. He tells Jeff Urban Beck that he buried it on the golf course behind his house 46 steps from the third tee in a week the FBI starts digging here's the third hole the golf course is really 46 steps from here but the agent soon begins to doubt that x marks the place years have passed and many things have changed So, in that landscape and the roots grow and grow again and again, it is really a difficult excavation, after five long hours of digging, one of the agents finally sees the corner of a hundred dollar bill.

I almost didn't believe it because we had been outside. There, while digging for so long and sure enough, we could see the remains of a cooler, agents unearthed the same soft-sided urban cooler from the Becht company that opened Becca's description. Could these be amends to the $69 million December urban scam? It was in horrible condition when we discovered it was wet, it was damp, it was broken nothing was done to protect the integrity of the case or the funds, however the agents were able to salvage enough pieces to send to the Treasury Department and received a check for two One hundred and fifty-seven thousand, six hundred and eleven dollars Skidmore, who had previously told Gormley that he knew nothing about hidden money, was charged with making false statements to a federal agent.

His excuse is sadly naive. I just said he did it for Bill. It was blind loyalty again. He was furious and I kind of understand his frustration. I even take any of the funds. You know that it can only be filed in the category of No good deed goes unpunished. You know he wasn't involved with Bill in any way other than him being a drinking buddy and a golf buddy and he thought he was doing Bill a favor. Skidmore pleads guilty and is sentenced to 16 months in prison. Bill Urban Beck's betrayal is in vain. They do not take away a single day from his sentence.

The only achievement is. put one more friend in prison this Skidmore wouldn't be in prison if it weren't for Miller Beck's former warrior wouldn't be in prison Michele marks a lot but not an economist I don't think the bankers would have gone to prison without the amount and Bill are men Urban Beck is still scheduled to be released in 2025, but with Bill Durbin Beck you never know what could happen. I don't think we've heard the last of it. Something else will probably come up. This is the case that never ends. pen from him, Beck's lender, the check is meant to pay off the entire mortgage Urban Beck took out to build a house in the first place, unfortunately, that's not what happens thanks to Urban Beck closing agent Michelle Marksberry .

Michelle Marks is closing the period and was asked if she could take the consult to the London construction lender because she would save a day's interest. It seems like a reasonable request at the time, but looking back on that day, Harlow remembers something suspicious—it was Halloween, October 31, and I remember Michelle saying that so soon. When she came out of the closing, she needed to rush home and dress her daughter for trick-or-treating and then she caught herself and said, I mean, as soon as I go and give this check to the bank, it's a telling slip.

Marks Barry has no intention of giving the check to the construction lender to pay off Urban Beck's original mortgage. He's putting it directly into Urban's bag company to verify the work and with Urban Beck's mortgage still open, it means Harlow's house now has two mortgages. she and bill urban beds in October 2009 six FBI agents carry shovels to this Country Club golf course in an upscale northern Kentucky suburb 46 steps from the third tee they've been told lies about buried treasure It's about 46 steps, let's run right in front of this tree FBI Special Agent Kevin Gormley has just returned after being summoned to a federal prison in Coleman, Florida, by renowned home builder and convicted fraudster Bill Urban Beck.

He hopes to get a reduction in his prison sentence. Beck tells Gormley he wants to confess to the money he had hidden in 2002 while being investigated for the $34 million fraud bill. He said he wanted to be able to start his life over once he got out of prison, at which point he was thinking. For a couple of years, Urban Rick's story takes Gormley to the top of the Hills Country Club, where Gormley's stuff paid for in the red is just moments away, but after five hours of unsuccessful excavation, it seems to some of Gormley's fellow agents that this fantastic story is just that of If you imagine one house at a time, you would expect Tony Urban to not only build his house, but perhaps get on the excavator and level the garden when it was finished and he is simply the most realistic and down to earth guide.

We always used to joke that he's, you know, the millionaire who drives the Chevette, but you old timers are too modest for the grandson, Bill Urban Beck, he has a much bigger plan. I think he wanted to go from obscurity to number one homebuilder in Northern Kentucky's Bill Arpan BEC wants to bring the urban BEC name into the modern era. It will no longer be one family that builds one house at a time. The Urban Beck company begins to build subdivisions and complete condominium projects and with great success. By 2002 the Urban Beck company has built hundreds of houses and is raising almost 100 million dollars a year and in stark contrast to his father's frugal bill, irfan Beck is now a million-dollar house and a stylish car that presents the image that the urban Beck company is on top of the world.

He was getting a lot of harassment as each hour passed and we weren't going to find him, of course, but I was sure we wouldn't leave until we found him. Bill Urban Beck's promise of buried treasure is. All that remains after nearly a decade of lies and theft is a scam that has sent seven people to prison and taken an estimated $69 million from banks for home buyers and construction contractors in Cincinnati and Kentucky, but as Glen Fagan, former golf buddy and next-door neighbor, explains. Attest that it didn't start out that way. Bill Urban Beck's fraud begins with an air of success, although our pin Beck had a gift and his gift was to persuade you that not only are you going to do business with him, but that it is the best thing you can do.

Have you ever done in your life the urban Beck family has been building trust along with houses for decades. Bill's grandfather was named Home Builder of the Year in 1965 by the Northern Kentucky Home Builders Association and Bill's father, Tony, followed in the same footsteps and slowly amassed his own. reputation, he was the third largest builder in Greater Cincinnati at the time he was recommended by many people in the community, including my employer. Linda Harlow purchases an open house in October 2000 and quickly becomes friends with one of her neighbors across the street, who happens to be an urban employee of the Beck company one afternoon in April 2002, however, that neighbor wants have a chat and he asked me if he could come to my house that night and talk to me and I said, well of course you can, we'll cross the street every day. night to talk to me and she said no, this is more serious.

Harlow's friend has inside information about shady dealings happening within Beck's urban company and she feels obligated to tell Harlow that there is a problem with her house. She proceeded to tell me that my house had several mortgages and I said why would that be? She had already paid for my house. I had closure. I paid and my lender handed over my house payment. When Harlow takes out a mortgage to buy her house, she expects the mortgage from her. company to ensure that a closing check