The owners of a Portland, Ore.-area real estate investment company were sentenced to federal prison on April 30 for their role in a $17 million fraud scheme.
Robert Christensen, 56, was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release, while accomplice Anthony Matic, 56, was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release.
According to court documents, from January 2019 through June 2023, Christensen and Matic told individual investors that they would use their investments to purchase and renovate undervalued residential real estate properties. Christensen and Matic also claimed they would rent the properties to generate income and refinance the properties to extract any increased value from the renovations.
The pair further misled investors into believing they would be repaid their full principal investment along with interest as high as 8 to 15 percent and a large lump sum payout, all within periods as short as 30 to 90 days.
Christensen and Matic used new investments to repay earlier investors to keep their business afloat. When they were unable to raise enough money from new investors, Christensen and Matic began submitting loan applications with false financial information to different commercial lenders and, based on their misrepresentations, received millions of dollars in loans.
In total, Christensen and Matic’s two schemes defrauded individual investors out of more than $10 million and commercial lenders out of more than $7 million.
This case was investigated by the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Trisotto for the U.S. District Attorney’s Office, District of Oregon.