McLean man indicted in expensive homes scam
By: Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writer
October 28, 2009
The former owner of a now-defunct mortgage company was indicted on fraud charges in a scheme to steal properties in Northwest Washington, court documents said.
Federal prosecutors said Steve I. Hetrick used impostor sellers and his vast knowledge of the District of Columbia's real estate market to illegally take possession of two properties without the owners knowing about it. Hetrick was charged with nine counts of fraud, money laundering and interstate transportation of stolen property.
One of the properties was a $2 million, seven-bedroom town house at 2158 California St. NW in the Kalorama neighborhood. The other is a $800,000 town house at 1819 10th St. NW in the Shaw area.
In November 2004, Hetrick, the former owner of Lion Real Estate Development and Management Company in McLean, illegally transferred the ownership of the Kalorama property to his company, document said, falsely claiming he paid the owners $60,000. In fact, the owners did not know of the transfer and did not receive any money for the sale, documents said.
The next month Hetrick had the property appraised for about $2 million. Hetrick and his wife, Svetlana, then secured a $1.5 million loan for a refinance, claiming to have owned the property since 2000, according to court filings.
For the next scheme, Hetrick recruited two people to pose as the real husband and wife owners of the Shaw property, documents said. The purported sellers provided fake Virginia driver's licenses to a notary to sell the property to Lion, prosecutors said.
The conspirators then forged the name of an appraiser and had the property appraised for $810,000, documents said.
On May 19, Hetrick made $636,000 from the sale of the Shaw property. Four days later, he wired about $460,000 to a bank account in Russia under his wife's maiden name, Svetlana Nikforova, court filings said.
The real owners of the 1819 10th St. property discovered the scam when a neighbor saw a real estate agent on the property, according to a lawsuit.
