Henderson police say real estate scheme scammed investor of millions
A Las Vegas Valley man has been charged with running a real estate investment scheme that Henderson police say relied on forged documents to steal more than $2 million from an investor.
Kory Scheeler, 60, was booked at the Clark County Detention Center on Thursday. A Henderson police arrest warrant obtained Friday by the Las Vegas Review-Journal shows Scheeler is charged in Henderson Justice Court with felony theft after a real estate investor, whose name was blacked out in the warrant, went to police in March 2021 to allege that Scheeler scammed him.
“Mr. Scheeler intends to plead not guilty and fight the charges,” Scheeler’s defense attorney, Russell Marsh, said Friday.
Police wrote in the warrant that the investor told police he entered into a contract with Scheeler in 2016, in which he loaned Scheeler $5.7 million to invest in real estate. The investor was supposed to get their money back plus a 10 percent return on investment.
“Kory would buy real estate with the money (the investor) provided and (the investor’s) name would be on the title of the property,” police wrote in the warrant.
From 2016 to 2018, the investor said he received documents from Scheeler showing Scheeler bought real estate for the investor and that the investor’s “name was on the title,” police said.
But in December of 2018, the investor was contacted by an attorney who was also investing with Scheeler. The attorney told the investor they were no longer receiving payments from Scheeler and that “Kory’s investments were suspicious,” police said.
“(The investor) then contacted the title company to the properties he believed that he owned, who advised him that he did not own the properties,” police said.
Scheeler had purchased some of the properties, the investor was told, but the investor was not on the deeds.
“(The investor) believed that he owned approximately 26 homes but discovered that his name was only on one of the deeds for a short time period,” police said.
In late 2018 or early 2019, the investor said he confronted Scheeler.
“Kory admitted to him that he had ‘messed up’ and that he was in a lot of trouble,” police said of the investor’s account. “Kory advised that he needed more time and that he would get him his money back.”
The investor also claimed that Scheeler told him “Kory admitted to lying about the escrow accounts, and admitted to using multiple individuals in the same manner by securing full funding for the same property from multiple individuals,” police wrote in the warrant.
Police said they contacted the investor’s attorney, Leo Flangas, who provided documents to police regarding the purported property purchases on behalf of the investor. Police said they ultimately examined those records and compared them to assessor’s office records and uncovered what they described as “forgeries” on loan instruction contracts, a promissory note and deeds of trust.
Police said they documented a financial loss to the investor of at least $2.1 million.
“Scheeler was evidently stealing the money for other unknown purposes to benefit himself, and intentionally misleading (the investor,)” police said. “After providing the false documentation to (the investor,) Scheeler would then purchase the parcels/homes with money from other customers, with the end product of those transactions often resulting in the other customers having to take legal action to actually obtain ownership of the parcel/home, and then sell it at public auction.”
Henderson Justice Court records list five felony counts of theft filed against Scheeler. A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for Aug. 11.
Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.
