Two more defendants sign consent agreements in Penland case

Two more defendants in the Penland real estate scheme have reached consent agreements that bars them from working in North Carolina under certain circumstances.

A total of six people have now entered consent judgments in the case.

Penland was a real estate venture in Mitchell County that used inflated appraisals to entice consumers into borrowing millions of dollars to purchase property. The Village of Penland was conceived as a 2,000-lot residential and retail development in the western North Carolina mountains.

Under a consent judgment entered by the court on Thursday, Michael Yeomans, a Florida developer, will pay $400,000 in restitution and be barred from developing, marketing or selling real estate in North Carolina if the project involves deceptive appraisals, sales incentives of more than $100 and a host of other conditions.

Yeomans earlier pleaded guilty to one count of mortgage fraud in a federal criminal in U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.

The other defendant signing a consent agreement was A. Greg Anderson, a North Carolina appraiser.

According to Attorney General Roy Cooper's office, Anderson conducted appraisals that substantially overstated the value of property sold to consumers as part of the Village of Penland scheme.

The inflated appraisals were used to qualify consumers for mortgages far in excess of the actual value of the land.

Under a consent judgment entered last month, Anderson is barred from working as an appraiser in North Carolina while his license is suspended.

The North Carolina Appraisal Board has suspended Anderson’s license until July 2011. Anderson is also barred from ever conducting appraisals on property where the seller is offering sales incentives of more than $100.

Four other defendants, Richard Amelung, J. Kevin Foster, Anthony Porter and Neil O’Rourke, have entered similar judgments with the Attorney General’s office.

Amelung, Foster, O’Rourke and Porter signed judgments similar to Yeomans’ and paid a combined total of more than $325,000 in restitution to the receiver.

According to the AG’s investigation, bogus sales to inside buyers helped artificially inflate the value of the lots, which sold for $125,000 a piece even though their tax values were $20,000 or less. 

Many of the lots could not realistically be used to build homes because of their size or topography, and none of the lots included water and sewer systems.