New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin announced the sentencing of two Atlantic County, N.J., men who had pleaded guilty after producing fake deeds for Atlantic City properties in order to scam real estate investors out of more than $500,000 dollars.
After an unsuccessful motion to withdraw his guilty plea, Richard Toelk Jr., 54, of Atlantic City, also known by the alias “Richard Donato,” was sentenced for theft by deception. State Superior Court Judge Donna Taylor, presiding in Mays Landing, denied Toelk’s motion and sentenced him in accordance with a plea agreement he previously reached with prosecutors, ordering him to serve a three-year prison term.
Toelk’s business partner, attorney Keith Smith, 60, of Egg Harbor Township, was sentenced to a non-custodial five-year probationary term by state Superior Court Judge Bernard DeLury.
The court also ordered the pair to be jointly liable for paying restitution to their victims in the amount of roughly $580,000.
The investigation revealed Toelk and Smith produced at least 20 fake deeds for real estate in Atlantic City and filed them with the Atlantic County Clerk’s Office from November 2018 through January 2019.
Toelk retained some for himself while marketing and selling others to investors in New York City and Philadelphia.
But most of the properties were actually owned by the Atlantic City municipal government, while a handful were privately owned. The land was not up for sale, and the defendants lacked the authority and legal title to sell the properties.
The fraudulent deeds purported to transfer the ownership of the various properties, in several cases for just a dollar each, from the rightful owners to limited liability companies owned by the defendants. Among the properties was a parcel actually owned by Atlantic City along the boardwalk, worth in excess of $1 million.
The scammers used the bogus deeds to close on real estate transactions with out-of-state investors, who paid the defendants an estimated $580,000 combined thinking they were acquiring real estate when they were in fact gaining the title to nothing.
The case was investigated by the New Jersey State Police Official Corruption South Unit. Before the guilty pleas were taken, the case was scheduled to be tried by Deputy Attorney General Brian Uzdavinis, the lead prosecutor, and Deputy Attorney General Kara Webster, under the supervision of Corruption Bureau Chief Peter Lee, OPIA Deputy Director Anthony Picione and OPIA Executive Director Thomas Eicher.