A husband-and-wife Realtor team from Wise, Va., were sentenced on federal wire fraud charges related to a scheme to create fake residential sales contracts in order to obtain advance sales commissions to which they were not entitled.
Jessee Allen DeLoach, 40, pled guilty in February 2022 to one count of wire fraud. He was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. Natasha Ashley Miller DeLoach, 38, also pled guilty to wire fraud in February 2022 and was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. In addition to their prison time, the DeLoaches agreed to pay $146,273 in restitution.
According to court documents, the DeLoaches owned a real estate agency called Koltown Properties, Inc., which operated in southwest Virginia. Between March 2016 and November 2019, the defendants created at least nineteen phony residential sales contracts and submitted them to multiple advance commission companies throughout the country to fraudulently obtain money.
Advance commission companies provide a financial service to real estate agents by assisting them with cash flow. Specifically, real estate agents may sell portions of their pending commissions on legitimate residential sales contracts in exchange for access to cash before the closing date.
As part of the scheme, the DeLoaches created entirely false sales contracts for properties they knew were not under contract or they listed buyers and sellers who did not exist. Additionally, the DeLoaches altered valid residential sales contracts to reflect that no other real estate agent was involved to double their claimed sales commissions. To further their schemes, the DeLoaches created fake title companies, including one named Excel Title Co., to validate the fraudulent contracts to the advance commission companies so they would in turn authorize commission payments to the DeLoaches. The DeLoaches obtained over $300,000 in advance sales commissions over the life of the schemes.
United States Attorney Christopher Kavanaugh and Special Agent in Charge Stanley Meador of the FBI made the announcement. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Virginia State Police investigated the case, with assistance from the Wise County Commonwealth Attorney’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lena Busscher prosecuted the case.