Federal authorities have arrested one of the founders of a real estate investment group accused of defrauding investors and abandoning hundreds of Cincinnati renters.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio Magistrate Judge Stephanie Bowman signed an arrest warrant for Vision & Beyond co-founder Stas Grinberg on March 19 on charges he committed wire fraud and bank fraud and that he made false statements on loan applications.
A federal inmate registry shows Gringberg is currently being held at FDC Houston, an administrative-level federal detention center.
According previous press releases from the company, Grinberg founded Vision & Beyond with business partner Peter Gizunterman in 2018. The company solicited investment in specific properties that it maintained an ownership stake in. At its peak, Vision & Beyond is believed to have owned hundreds of millions of dollars in residential property, including more than 60 properties in Cincinnati.
Those investors allege in lawsuits that Grinberg and Gizunterman engaged in a complex scheme that involved fraudulently transferring properties away from the investors and then mortgaging them for roughly $36 million.
The filing by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service seeking an arrest warrant against Grinberg in U.S. District Court alleges he and Gizunterman used a variety of fraudulent means to obtain loans and forestalling foreclosure on them, including misrepresenting how much rent they were collecting, mortgaging properties with multiple lenders at the same time, obtaining false documentation regarding payoff of mortgages, hiding who had ownership interest in the properties, how much the properties would sell for, and so forth. Some of the information in the filing comes from "Witness 1," a person who worked for the company implicated in the fraudulent activity who then gave federal authorities information about it.
"According to Witness 1, Grinberg and Gizunterman began to acquire several multi-family commercial properties in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Texas," the filing reads. "Grinberg and Gizunterman began to 'double pledge' properties to obtain financial loans through different lenders for financial gain. Grinberg and Gizunterman were able to do this with the assistance of two closing agents who were complicit in the scheme."
In earlier filings in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, the City of Cincinnati has alleged that Vision & Beyond effectively abandoned those properties and others, leaving residents there with no one to call to fix major issues. Renters of former Vision & Beyond properties report lack of heat in the middle of winter, flooding apartments, collapsing ceilings and other problems.
Cases underway in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court are attempting to determine ownership of those properties now.
Read more:
Tenants at former Vision & Beyond properties struggle with company's fallout
Real estate investment group Vision & Beyond faces multiple lawsuits
Are former Vision & Beyond property problems a symptom of a larger issue?