A federal jury on Thursday convicted a founder of a nonprofit organization on charges that he forged the names of dead people in order to steal their homes.
Duane McKinney, 35, president of Brotherhood of Men Inc., was found guilty on 11 counts of fraud, theft and illegal money transactions. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 15, and faces between seven and nine years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, according to the U.S. district attorney for D.C.
Prosecutors said McKinney used his organization to steal 14 properties and sell nine of them for a gain of $770,000. Co-defendant Joe D. Liles, a notary public in Maryland, was accused of notarizing the dead people’s signatures. Liles pleaded guilty in January and will be sentenced May 30.
The case began in 2006 when an Arlington County police officer stopped to assist McKinney after his 2002 BMW stalled. The officer discovered that McKinney had an outstanding warrant for simple assault, and searched the car. Inside the trunk, police found a duffel bag stuffed with $159,040 in cash.
McKinney told police that the money belonged to Brotherhood of Men, a nonprofit registered in D.C. whose mission was to assist disadvantaged youth with job training and advice about fatherhood. The nonprofit acquired the money by obtaining deeds on properties that the organization would then fix up and sell at a profit, McKinney told police.
But the property owners were dead at the time of the transfer or the owners said they had not signed the deeds, federal agents testified.
After Liles affixed his notary public seal on the deeds, claiming to have witnessed the owner sign them, the documents were filed with D.C. and Maryland deed recorders so that title searchers would be misled into believing McKinney owned the property, authorities said.
smccabe@dcexaminer
