Bank fraud bust nets four

Weren't we talking about this Roger Ritch a while back and several people were saying he was innocent and we were in the wrong about him . . . I guess the truth told a different story.

Glad these people were arrested . . . people have enough problems without dealing with scum like this!

I want to be sure that all the readers know that no one involved with this or that worked for American Value Homes was a Realtor.

It is about time! I am so glad they finally came down on Ritch. Dig around I am sure there is more illegal things happening with him. Need to come down on some of the others that are doing this and living high on the hog on some poor persons money. Way to go law enforcement all levels.

The days of these guys living high off somebody else's hog are over. I hope they like mayonaise sanwiches and Vienna sausages.

It's about time!!! Thank you to everyone helping on this case. I lost my house and was out about 35,000 dollars because of John Henderson. I loved the video of him hiding his face! I have since moved on and will try a civil case against this scum!! Thanks again to the everyone envolved in getting these people!

I got the feeling Rags2Ritches must be related to Roger. He sounds a little perturbed about the situation.

I had to move from a nice subdivision because of the "junk" he threw up next to us. Everyone knew he was a crook. Im surprised it took this long to lock him up. Good job Law Enforcement and detectives for sticking with it. I hope justice is served and he gets to live on the other side for a while.

What these folks better really watch is the IRS. If they get convicted of anything related to fraud or money laundering, the IRS will seize everything they or their families own.

Under what is referred to as "commingling of assets" if you take one crooked penny and deposit it into an account with one million dollars of legitimate income, the entire account becomes subject to seizure.

This means that this situation could be hard on their families as well.

ITS ABOUT TIME!!!!

reader_2,

It is, it is... nice observation.

"Rags2Ritches" Sounds like you may be his crooked wife. I was a real estate agent for a long time and had dealing's with both and got to say I was never so glad when my clients decided to look at other houses. Being a agent I could not say anything due to all the laws and rules we have about things but that was the best thing they could have ever done. Sure hate it for all the families that got screwed up in all of it and lost so much from him just because they wanted to live high on that hog and did not care about anyone but them selves. I hope they throw the book at them all.

They need to check into Bell Buckle too. Melody Chockley lost her home that Mr Ritch paid part of the down payment. And while they are checking I been noticiing his wife has gotten some joint property moved into her name.

Why can't I see the "ragstoriches" comment?

They said a bad word, told everyone to be quite in a very rude way, so it got deleted.

Thanks Momof3&3step&1gran :)

This is only the tip of the iceberg in the real estate business across the entire country. The entire real estate industry is "termite ridden". By the time folks find out, it will be too late. It's not just Ritch who has ripped people off in the Beford County area.

titansrahrahsquad...... Your devotion to a friend may be something to be admired, but the fact is that your "friend" is now under federal indictment for fraud. Not sure you know much about those feds, but they tend to do their homework before making an arrest. It's not like some group of locals where ticked off and a local grand jury handed down a true bill. Just hope you are not in business with your friend, because fraud like this tends to have long arms and this may be just the first of more arrest.

I can personnaly atest to the pain and humiliation that goes along with loosing your home, especially in something like this. Greed and arrogance are always behind this sort of thing. You know these people at American Value Homes presented themselves as Christians and would talk about how through their work of selling homes they had helped bring people to Christ. I was one that they prayed with after signing papers to purchase a home. My faith was and is strong enough to endure that sort of hypocrisy. I wonder what happened to those new Christians who lost there homes and believed that they were being treated fairly by AVH and that this was a Christian way of practicing business? I hope the FBI continues their investigation and finds the remaining employees who knew what was going on and continued to go to work each day and rob people of their dreams, hopes and many times dignity.

This is not shocking news, at all! While what these alleged frauds have done is unexceptable, and foreclosed families are left holding the bag, where is the consumer accountability here?

Wait....do they just sell manufactured homes? I'm so confused. It that's the case, then nevermind the question I asked. Our's is a built from scratch home.

Thankfully, the people of Bell Buckle rallied, put up the funds to hire an attorney and stopped Mr. Ritch from polluting our community with one of his developments. The owners of the 200 acres, as well as a town official, fought to have it annexed, which was part of their agreement with Mr. Ritch. We owe a debt of gratitude to those who, at great personal sacrifice, blocked the annexation and development.

Like ss1015 said, there are other local folks who should share some scrutiny in this horrible scam. I live in one of the homes. We had our own financing and the price we paid was very reasonable for the square footage in 2002. We still live in the house and love it. We were the 2nd family in the homes by the back entrance to the park. However, I have had many neighbors in foreclosure. Some houses have been foreclosed twice. Many of these homes were sold at very outrageous prices. So, first there was a local appraiser involved that falsified appraisals. So, how are they doing now? Kickbacks? Second, although our home was built fairly well except there were no vents in the roof. Nor any of these homes. So, where was the local building inspectors and how are they living now? Kickbacks? Finally, Tommy Lawwell built all these homes? How is Mr. Lawwell now? He most certainly made a huge income over the past 7 years building these homes for Ritch!

I am so sorry for all the buyers that got dupped. I have a neighbor that is making payments on a first mortgage and payments on a second mortgage of over $1200 mo. House's actual worth should have received a mortgage that would have had payments in the $500 range. I pray for this family daily.

in response to the comments about "passing inpection". Why wouldn't it pass when it the brother-in-law doing the inspections.

Ok let me get this straight letmecmychild , you believe just because someone has slow or poor credit it is ok for banks, mortgage companies or people like Mr Ritch to prey on these people? Who twisted these places to give out these loans?? The answer is clear: Greed is what has caused the mess we are in now. Banks knew the people with low credit and base income were desperate people, they will agree to almost anything in order to acheive a home...so they give them ARM's at outragesous revolving interest. Knowing full well when the ARM readjusted they would never be able to pay the payments and every dime they had put into their home would be free clear money for the banks...then the bank could flip the house and resell to the next dupe. Yep that's the kind of bank I want handling my money ...NOT!!! Mr Ritch on the other hand just pretty much leased to own these homes most of these people were not even on any loan papers...of course this may have been a good idea in theory if Mr Ritch was actually making the loan payments on the homes.

Just in case my (now 3) previous post is removed, will someone from the T-G please be kind enough to send me an email and let me know why?

Thanks, Stan

Mr. Mosley, thank you for your kind response.

Please allow me to both rephrase and explain my question;

According to Farris - The scheme involved the sale of houses by American Value Homes totalling (sic) approximately $30 million, and foreclosure on the fraudulent loans has resulted in a loss to lenders totaling approximately $2.4 million...

So it would seem that some bank, somewhere has taken a loss of +/- 2.4M. Additionally, Mr. Farris goes on to state that customers coming in with "outside" financing were OK. I take that to mean that anyone NOT dealing directly with Mr. McMahan was getting a standard mortgage, etc.

Therefore, it follows that Mr. McMahan was either in collusion with or victimizing a bank or banks to finance these notes.

What banks are involved? The question is valid because if the bank/banks (or employees thereof) were in collusion on this scheme we need to get the word out so others can avoid becoming victims. In the alternative, if the banks are victims, then we need to know that as well because any bank (or employee thereof) handling that much money from one man should be on the ball enough to do a little checking. If not they are incompetent and that needs to be known too.

Stan,

Those were my thoughts, too.

It would be very surprising to me if there was no 'insider' at a bank or at several banks to facilitate this process.

In re banks involved: The mortgages were sold to many lenders, none here in Shelbyville. If you have following the foreclosure fiasco as I have, you would know every lending mortgage institution in America had a hand in this rotten pie. One resident still trying to make the payments has 1st mortgage with Countrywide and 2nd mortgage with Fifth Third Bank. Anyone can go back and look at old Times Gazettes and see all the mortgage lenders who foreclosed on loans. By the way, when these borrowers decided they couldn't pay their mortgage payments they continued to live in the homes for many months. So while they may have ruined their credit, they moved to a new residence with a lot of unpaid mortgage money. I've done foreclosures in 2 states, TN and Florida. By the time an attorney is given the file for workup for foreclosure the borrower usually has lived in the property for 1-2 years without paying the payments. Greed is indeed an ugly part of our culture and it goes all the way from the person buying a house, who should know whether or not they can pay the monthly amount, all the way to the top of corporate America. Roger Ritch is a bad guy, and I assume will be innocent until proven guilty in a Federal Court, but there are other bad, greedy in this story.

In re banks involved: The mortgages were sold to many lenders all over the country, none here in Shelbyville. If you have followedg the foreclosure fiasco as I have, you would know every lending mortgage institution in America had a hand in this rotten pie. One resident still trying to make the payments has 1st mortgage with Countrywide and 2nd mortgage with Fifth Third Bank. Anyone can go back and look at old Times Gazettes and see all the mortgage lenders who foreclosed on loans. By the way, when these borrowers decided they couldn't pay their mortgage payments they continued to live in the homes for many months. So while they may have ruined their credit, they moved to a new residence with a lot of unpaid mortgage money. I've done foreclosures in 2 states, TN and Florida. By the time an attorney is given the file for workup for foreclosure the borrower usually has lived in the property for 1-2 years without paying the payments. Greed is indeed an ugly part of our culture and it goes all the way from the person buying a house, who should know whether or not they can pay the monthly amount, all the way to the top of corporate America. Roger Ritch is a bad guy, and I assume will be innocent until proven guilty in a Federal Court, but there are other bad, greedy people in this story.

One of the saddest is things in this situation is that during the 3 year period from 2002 - 2005, Ritch built and sold all these homes and saturated the local market for houses in the $95,000 - $150,000 range. Now my home, which is in great shape, should have appreciated by the same percent the tax assessor thinks it has appreciated. If I could sell my house for what the tax assessor says it is worth, I would make some money like Ritch, his builder, Lawwell, and the others involved. For the local real estate professionals, know that at the beginning of 2002 no new homes in this price range were being built. Houses on the market were very over priced. For the amount I paid for my home of 3 br, 2 baths, new, all appliances new, garage with remote opener, I would have to have purchased a small, much smaller, 30-40 year old house, with only 2 br, 1-1/2 baths and with many repairs needed. So unfortunately, Mr. Ritch saw an opportunity in the existing market and took it. To bad it wasn't an honest local builder. After all the lots he built on near the park, have been around for what 30+ years. It's call the Shepard Subdivision. I'm not sorry I made my purchase. I have a nice home in a very nice neighborhood near the park with very nice neighbors. I'm just sorry you local real estate pros did not see this opportunity so Ritch would have stayed in Murfreesboro. That is after all his home, no matter what the newspaper article stated. You can find this information by doing an online search for TN corporations and "American Value Homes, Inc." The listing names him as President and gives his Murfreesboro home address. God bless you all.

I know many people have been defrauded. I know that law enforcement has worked very hard in this investigation. I applaud them for that and for taking care of their citizens they are responsible for.

I do want to say that I know both Roger Ritch and his wife Pat and John Henderson and his wife Stephanie. The Henderson's live in our neighborhood and the Ritch's across the street in another subdivision. I know that they are great people and specifically John who has worked with my husband in the auto industry. My chidren are friends with both sets of chidren.

I do think that unless you have a PERSONAL dealing with the defendants that you save your judgement. That is why we have a criminal justice system that you are considered INNOCENT until proven guilty. I am praying that the great people I know are not the ones that made this horrid mistake and criminal act. If they are found guilty then I will support their families and pray that they turn to God for help and support.

I am in no way naive but I do believe we need to take the politics out of the justice system so that these individuals will be able to get the proper trial with a jury of their peers.

I feel sick about those who lost their homes and life savings, I will continue to pray for you and that God helps you restore your life.

God Bless to all involved and may God guide you in every step of your lives.

Dinatn, there are no mobile homes that AVH placed on New Hope Rd. AVH opened a Phase II of Echo Hills Subdivision off of New Hope Rd. which are all constructed homes. Granted AVH did not follow their own subdivision restrictions when building these homes, which left some homeowners with large square footage homes surrounded by small homes bringing down their home value. Also, there have been a couple of foreclosures in that area, so the FBI may need to take a look at the homes in that area. Those people may have been scammed too.

As far as the quality of construction on all AVH homes, it depends on the builder. AVH has been known to use a few different contractors within this county. Given that I live in one of these neighborhoods, I have watched two different contractors build homes there and have walked through them all as they were being built. The ones that Williams Bros. Contstruction built are all of sound construction from the ground up. Even so, one contractor, whose name I will refrain from stating, did a shoty job of building. There were screws coming through the sheet rock, unlevel porches, unlevel roofs, etc.

Maybe somebody could tell me if American Value Homes and American Home Value is the same place? I have often wondered about that.. if they aren't the same maybe I am confusing the two.

n Posted by Dianatn

Different companies.

Great work by the PD.

Now let's get to work on the insurance company "good 'ol boys" clubs. Their collusion practices are costing homeowners $millions$!

Everyone who has or had a claim of fraud against Rodger and his cronies will have a chance to file personal civil suits on a one by one basis once the Feds have proved that there actually was wrong doing. I know Rodger (played golf with him a few times) and I also know a few people who have been caught up in his buisness practices. Being a businessman myself, I often wondered, "HOW" or "WHAT" kind of racket he had going, now I know. If he is guilty, I hope he gets what he deserves. Something that also needs to be addressed is is "Hired Guns". If he is guilty as charged, they ought to get a little of the spotlight. To the ones who are the victims, I'm truly sorry. Shelbyville has recieved a very bad reputation for bing a scummy town because of people like Ritch, Farrar, Howard, etc... & until everyone gets enough and takes care of it, it will remain this way.