Accomplice of Alleged Florida Home Loan Fraud Mastermind Apprehended in Texas
Chalk one up for the good guys.
Ralph Roberts of the Realty Times reports that federal authorities in Texas have arrested Rebecca Hauck, alleged co-conspirator of real estate and mortgage fraud poster boy Matthew Cox.
Cox and Hauck could be called the Bonnie & Clyde of the Florida home loan world… and beyond. A string of dirty deeds that are rumored to stretch from coast to coast have gained them much notoriety. Now, half of the combo is in custody.
According to various news sources and unsealed federal documents, the pair allegedly began its crime spree by committing Florida real estate fraud in the Tampa area in 2003. The St. Petersburg Times and MortgageFraudBlog.com say that Cox started a Tampa-based mortgage company around that time. After he was charged with fraud in Tampa, Cox concocted a plan to use phony IDs and falsified records to make a fortune with fraudulent Florida home loans on broken-down properties.
Later, says MortgageFraudBlog.com, Cox and Hauck moved on to Atlanta, Ga., where they allegedly engaged in a real estate fraud scheme but disappeared before being caught. In 2005, Cox — whose known aliases include Maxwell Price, David R. Freeman, Gerald Scott Cugno, Michael S. Shanahan, Michael J. Eckert, Gary L. Sullivan, and David White — was nearly caught in South Carolina, but again managed to evade authorities and disappear. And not before securing over $1 million in fraudulent mortgage-related loans.
The story gets even more interesting.
According to numerous sources, Cox is rumored to have penned The Associates, a 300-page crime novel detailing the same criminal activities of which he is now accused, before embarking on the spree. The central character in Cox’s novel is a former University of South Florida student who quits his insurance sales job to strike it rich in the Florida home loan business, but finds himself in trouble with the FBI. In a bind, he masterminds an elaborate scheme to defraud lenders of millions before vanishing.
Cox himself is a former University of South Florida student who started his own mortgage company, and has now been charged with fraud in Tampa, while allegedly brainstorming a scheme to evade federal authorities. By his side throughout was accomplice Rebecca Hauck. It will be interesting to see if, upon her arrest, Hauck will reveal enough information about Cox so that he will be tracked down and put out of business for good. Hopefully, for the sake of Florida home loan applicants and businesses, he will be.
