From Jo’Mell Thomas’s MySpace page.
(Editor’s Note: This article has been updated and corrected. Some quotes had been wrongly attributed to a figure in this case. Click here to read a subsequent story that offers the full details on what happened in this case.) Alicia Martineau knew what it was like to wait tables to pay the bills. Then one day she showed up at a house closing in Fair Haven — and allegedly walked away with $10,000 in a black trash bag simply for pretending to be the buyer.
Now Martineau finds herself enmeshed in one of the largest white-collar fraud cases New Haven has seen in years.
Unlike some prominent men accused of running the scam, Martineau hasn’t been arrested in the case. It’s unclear if she is talking to the federal law-enforcement agents prosecuting it.
She’s not talking about it in public, at least for now. She declined to respond to repeated requests for comment left through friends and through her Facebook account.
“Family and friends are taking care of her right now. She’s very frightened,” said a man who referred to himself as Martineau’s “representative.”
“She’s 23. She’s a young kid. This is not a grown woman experienced in any of this,” the “representative” said. “She got involved with some guys who used her and took advantage of her.” He said he would pass along a request for further comment to Martineau’s lawyer, whom he didn’t name and who never called back. (Subsequently a sentencing memo in this case identified the caller as Martineau’s boyfriend.)
Facebook Photo
Martineau (pictured) got involved in an alleged plan to rip off lenders — both the federal government and private mortgage companies — of millions of dollars through elaborately documented sham purchases and renovations of houses in low-income New Haven neighborhoods and in other parts of Connecticut.
The FBI last month arrested a former state representative, a rabbi, a West Haven police commissioner and one-time “Irishman of the Year,” and an alleged ringleader who goes by “Ali” and “Asad” in connection with running the alleged ring. Read about those arrests here.
The group obtained $10 million in improper mortgages on 35 New Haven properties, stiffing lenders for 30 to 40 percent of that amount, according to the feds. According to an indictment, here’s how it worked: The group would find someone to pretend to buy a house. The person’s name would go on the sale documents and the mortgage application, which often would contain fake information. The documents would list the sale price as far higher than the real amount being paid; a phony appraisal would back up the fake price. Then the ringleaders would obtain mortgages based on the fake price, divide up the profits, stiff the lender (in some cases a federal program to assist low-income homebuyers), and let the run-down homes fall back into foreclosure. Some of the houses have since been abandoned, exacerbating blight in New Haven neighborhoods seeking to remain stable amid a foreclosure crisis. (Some of those arrested told the Independent that they’re innocent.)
To make the alleged scheme work, the scammers needed everyday-seeming people to commit the crime of pretending to buy houses, put their names on sale and mortgage documents, accept a quick payday, then get lost.
People like Alicia Martineau.
Or, as the feds refer to her in an indictment, “straw buyer ‘A.M.’”
Shady Documents
Martineau graduated Co-op High School in 2004 and was a memberSouthern Connecticut State University in 2008, she notes on her Facebook page. According to her MySpace page, she worked as a waitress while studying at SCSU. According to SCSU spokesman Patrick Dilger, “It appears that she took a number of courses during four semesters” but never graduated.
On Oct. 1, 2009, Martineau bought a house at 211 Lloyd St. in the Fair Haven neighborhood, according to land records.
She didn’t really buy it, according to the feds.
According to the indictment in the case, an appraiser first falsely issued a report on Sept. 18 that “the property had been ‘totally gutted’ and ‘totally rehabilitated.’”
On Oct. 1 a former state representative, Morris Olmer, conducted the closing. He had given up his law license amid allegations of impropriety. He conducted the closing as a “notary public. ” (Olmer has previously told the Independent he didn’t break any laws.)
According to the indictment, the closing “was completed on the basis of fraudulent documentation, including the loan application submitted to the lender … for straw buyer ‘A.M.’”
U.S. Attorney David Fein elaborated on the transaction at a June 17 press conference about the arrests. The straw buyer never even received the keys to the house she was allegedly buying and moving in to, Fein claimed. Rather, she received “$10,000 in a black plastic trash bag” and went on her way.
Paul Bass Photo
Land records reveal “A.M.” to be Martineau. They list her home address as an apartment complex called Crestview in a working-class section of West Haven. A visit there found her name still listed in the complex directory. No one answered a knock on her apartment door. A next-door neighbor said she believes Martineau moved out last month and new tenants, “an older man and her daughter,” have moved in. Martineau “was working a lot,” the neighbor said.
Records reveal Martineau signed papers to buy 117 Lloyd St. from an active New Haven slum landlord named Marshall Asmar, whose role in the alleged-scam case has also remained out of the spotlight. (Read about that here.) Martineau allegedly “paid” Asmar $160,000 for the property, according to land records; Asmar had bought it from Deutsche Bank the previous December for just $16,000. Martineau then allegedly “obtained” a $157,102 mortgage on the property from Franklin American Mortgage Co. of Franklin, Tennessee.
The federal indictment alleges that the loan application for 117 Lloyd “indicated that A.M. [Martineau] worked at ‘Home Catering Restaurant, LLC,’ and that A.M. would occupy the property as A.M.‘s primary residence.”
A visit to the property revealed that tenants have never seen or heard of Martineau; they paid the rent to someone else. Also, there was no sign of the “total” gut-rehab claimed on the appraisal. The third floor lacks electricity; the basement is a fire trap. (Read about that part-way through this story.)
As for Home Catering Restaurant, LLC, a filing with the Office of the Secretary of the State lists a Berlin, Connecticut, address. A phone number once associated with the business is no longer is service. The principal listed for the business is Jo’mell Thomas.
Alicia Martineau’s name shows up in another, similar transaction with Marshall Asmar, on the exact same day as the Lloyd Street sale. Land records show her “purchasing” a house from him at 44 West St. in a transaction handled by Olmer. That alleged sale price, too, was for a putative $160,000, the basis for another $157,102 mortgage from Franklin American. A group of people hanging out in front of the rundown West Street house one night last week said they hadn’t heard of Asmar or Martineau; one said he pays rent to a man from New York. (The group was visibly intoxicated and uninterested in talking.)
Why?
Why would risk getting arrested by putting her name on an allegedly false transaction — and ruin her credit by having her name on mortgages intended to go sour?
Martineau’s “representative”‘s explanation: She was in over her head, didn’t know what she was doing.
That might provide part of the answer to another question: Why didn’t the feds charge her with a crime?
So said Jeffrey Meyer, a Quinnipiac University associate law professor who prosecuted white-collar criminal cases from 2000 – 2004 as a new Haven-based assistant U.S. attorney.
“It’s very unlikely” that the feds will ever charge her with a crime in the case if they haven’t already, Meyer said.
It’s possible she’s cooperating with the government as a witness in the case and received immunity or a plea deal, Meyer said.
It’s also possible that prosecutors simply worry they couldn’t convince a jury to convict her. Juries tend to come down harder on people in a “sophisticated market position,” he said, people who know how the market works. A young “low-income person” with no background in real estate who says she trusted more sophisticated scammers could very well “not be seen as blameworthy by a jury,” Meyer said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has declined further comment on the case as the investigation continues.
Martineau’s “representative” was asked why Martineau is frightened — whether the feds could protect her from retaliation.
“You’re a reporter,” he responded. “You know the government doesn’t take care of anybody.”
