A former Wausau businessman was charged Monday with racketeering, embezzlement, fraud and tax crimes on allegations that he stole $1 million from clients’ home mortgages.
Jay S. Fischer, 52, the former president of Valley Title on 17th Avenue in Wausau, was charged with 21 felony and four misdemeanor counts in Marathon County after a mortgage fraud investigation. Valley Title served as a closing agent for real estate transactions when homeowners refinanced mortgages or bought a house.
http://liarcatchers.com/fraud_investigation.html
According to the criminal complaint, Fischer received more than $1 million from 10 real estate transactions in 2009 and 2010. Investigators say Fischer failed to pay off the old mortgages, resulting in dual active mortgages on the homes. Fischer later satisfied two of the mortgages after the homeowners discovered dual mortgages on their properties, according to the complaint.
The complaint alleges
that Fischer kept about $1 million from the remaining mortgages.
The charge of racketeering alleges that Fischer used Valley Title to embezzle money and obtain signatures on closing documents by fraud. The complaint also charges Fischer with failing to file individual and corporate tax returns in 2009 and 2010. Fischer no longer actively operates Valley Title and now lives in Marion, according to the complaint.
Efforts to reach Fischer and his attorney, Gary McCartan, were unsuccessful. Danielle Delonay, identified in the complaint as a former employee of Valley Title, declined to comment when contacted by the Wausau Daily Herald.
Delonay told investigators that while she worked for Valley Title for about 12 years, Fischer was the only person who prepared and executed the closings of real estate transactions, according to the complaint.
At the time of the transactions, Fischer was the title agent for the Old Republic National Title Insurance Co. According to the complaint, Fischer admitted to a fraud examiner from Old Republic that he had not paid off mortgages as required after closing. Fischer described his actions as a “lapping scheme,” according to the fraud examiner, Douglas F. Pollock.
According to Fischer’s Facebook site, he is a 1978 graduate of Wausau West High School and was in the Class of 1982 at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. According to a Valley Title website, Fischer was the president of the company, and his wife, Julie Fischer, was vice president. Valley Title was formed and incorporated in 1989, according to the website.
