The ringleader of a Queens deed theft crew has been sentenced to three to nine years for stealing homes from elderly or disabled owners, state Attorney General Letitia James announced.
Marcus Wilcher, 48, and his crew pocketed more than $1 million in proceeds — using forged documents — from the fraudulent sales of three houses in Jamaica and St. Albans.
“Marcus Wilcher and his associates targeted elderly and vulnerable New Yorkers with a predatory scheme that inflicted significant financial and emotional harm,” James said in a statement Friday.
“New Yorkers work their entire lives to secure a home, and deed theft threatens to rob them of the generational wealth they have built for their families.”
Wilcher, of Long Island, would identify homes “in poor or run-down condition with absentee owners,” James said.
Then 53-year-old Stacie Saunders, a former mortgage broker, would market them to investors at a significantly discounted below-market price to make quick sales, James explained when announcing the arrests and indictments of five crew members in December 2022.
Once there was interest from an investor, Wilcher obtained personal information from the real owners to create fake driver’s licenses, social security cards and bank cards.
Disbarred attorney Anyekache Hercules, 49, created certain forged legal documents used in the theft of the homes.
Wilcher and Saunders found four people, including crew members Dean Lloyd, 63, and Jerry Currin, 67, to impersonate the real owners at contract signings and closings.
The crew laundered the proceeds through out-of-state banks, James said.
Wilcher pleaded guilty to grand larceny in May and was sentenced Friday to three to nine years in prison for his role in the deed theft ring and the theft of two additional properties in Queens.
Hercules pleaded guilty to the scam and will receive up to three years in prison come September, the AG’s office said.
Currin and Lloyd pleaded guilty to felony counts of offering a false instrument for filing, while Saunders awaits trial.
Deed fraud is on the rise nationwide.
In a particularly notable case, federal prosecutors charged community organizer and real estate agent Zina Thomas in March with conspiring to steal more than 30 homes in and around Detroit by forging quitclaim deeds.
The legal documents allowed her to transfer properties to fake entities without a traditional sale, and then sell them to unwitting third parties.
