Mortgage Fraud What Our $800 Billion Dollars Paid For By:
Bill E. Branscum
Copyright 2008
Troy David Stratos, a/k/a Troy David Stafford
According to the sworn statement provided by his twenty-six
year old former boyfriend (identified herein as Witness A), as supported
by the sworn statement of his mother (identified herein as Witness
B), and the original loan and bank related documents that they provided,
Troy David Stratos seduced the young man, professed his undying
love, entered into a live-in relationship, and persuaded him to
purchase properties involving mortgage obligations in excess of
two million dollars, while the young man was employed as a waiter
making six dollars per hour ($6/HR) plus tips.
Naturally, the loans are in default, but I suppose
that this is the sort of thing our $800 Billion dollars went to
pay for.
As evidenced by the transcripts, it is quite a story.
Witness A, a soft spoken, quiet young man from the Midwest, who
aspires to be a model and hopes to pursue an acting career, describes
meeting Stratos while working as a waiter in a fast food restaurant.
Witness A reports that he initially ignored Stratos' advances, but
ultimately became involved in what he describes as his first homosexual
relationship, and moved in with Stratos after discussing his feelings
for Stratos with his mother, Witness B, in whom he appears to confide
everything.
As one might imagine, being from small town America,
Witness B had difficult, and conflicting, emotions to deal with,
but she loves her son above all things, and she did the best she
could to be supportive. She describes meeting with Stratos, who
assured her that she should not worry about the age difference,
his feelings for her son were genuine, and he would never take advantage
of him.
In fact, as their story goes, Stratos' love for Witness
A was so profound that he wanted to demonstrate his sincerity by
"giving him" the house they shared, valued at more than
a million dollars - a house which Stratos represented that he owned,
outright. Unfortunately, a gift in excess of $10,000 carries with
it tax implications, but the witnesses report that Stratos had a
"plan." Rather than give him the house, Stratos arranged
for him to buy it, promising him, and his mother, that the proceeds
of the loan would be parked in a Trust Account and used to pay the
loan off over the course of a year, thereby transferring the house
to Witness A, avoiding tax implications, and providing the young
man with "deep" credit. The witnesses report that all
went as planned, but not as promised - there was no Trust Account,
and the young waiter from the Midwest learned a harsh lesson about
love in South Beach.
Unfortunately, he didn't learn it in time to avoid
being taken twice.
The witnesses report that Stratos recognized that
nothing was as important to his boyfriend as his mother, and he
played on it. They allege that he offered to make it possible for
Witness A to buy a second home, also valued in excess of a million
dollars, so his mother could move to Florida to be close to her
son and leave the cold Midwest winters behind. This deal was even
more special than the last, as Witness A was going to incur a mortgage
obligation in excess of a million dollars, as well as a second mortgage
of $169,000 for cash that was to be used to "fix up the place
for his Mom." They claim to have been assured that Stratos
was going to take care of everything.
By all appearances, the only thing Stratos took care
of, was proving to them that South Beach can be colder than anything
they knew in the Midwest. The young man was left with mortgage obligations
exceeding two million dollars, and the $169,000 was immediately
transferred from the joint account that Stratos shared with Witness
A, to an account that Stratos is believed to share with another,
older man.
I think it bears mentioning that, in addition to being
a rather naive, trusting person from small town America, I found
Witness A to be unusually vulnerable in other respects as well.
For one thing, he has grand dreams - he dreams of being a success
at modeling and acting. For another thing, and probably more importantly,
this is a young man who has never even met his father, so one might
surmise that an older man willing to profess to love him would find
him to be a walking vulnerability waiting to be exploited.
I think it also bears mentioning that this young man,
and his mother, provided these statements and the supporting documentation,
explicitly authorizing me to publish it all as a warning to others,
knowing that it will cause them some embarrassment. I'd call that
courageous and selfless - I have taken it upon myself to redact
their names.
The following exhibits, except the Transcript of Witness
B's Statement, are currently being transcribed and/or scanned; they
will be published within a few days.
