Home Builders, Broker Charged With Theft

They promised to deliver brick-front colonials in a sparkling new subdivision in Upper Marlboro, homes on as much as an acre of land for as little as $370,000.

Instead, the home builders and the mortgage broker pocketed payments from 11 buyers and left them empty-handed, Glenn F. Ivey, state's attorney for Prince George's County, said yesterday. The builders and broker are accused of collecting about $1 million for homes that were never built in what was to be the Kings Grant subdivision.

"We felt these defendants were trying to steal the American Dream," Ivey said as he announced charges against the three. "And we want to get the message out that we will prosecute."

Home builders Leon T. Coleman and his wife, Emma Coleman, District Heights residents who ran Opportunity Investment Group, are charged with 57 counts of theft and other violations. Mortgage broker Kathy Lynn Ridley of Ellicott City, who operated Worldwide Financial Services, is charged with 13 counts of theft and conspiracy.

Reached by phone later, Leon Coleman said that he was unaware of the charges and that his company had done nothing wrong. The subdivision was supposed to be his first home-building project, he said.

"I didn't receive any money for the homes," he said.

Efforts to reach Ridley for comment and identify her attorney were unsuccessful.

If convicted, the Colemans could face up to 35 years in prison. Ridley, to whom the Colemans are accused of referring their customers, could face up to 15 years.

Ivey said he knew of no other instances of home builders in Maryland being criminally prosecuted on allegations that they collected money, then failed to deliver homes.

The division of consumer protection at the state attorney general's office has received 50 complaints since 2006 from customers saying that their builder failed to finish their homes, spokesman Shanetta J. Paskel said. Nineteen of the complaints were filed this year.

Assistant State's Attorney Doyle Niemann, one of the prosecutors in the case, said the majority of the $1 million the defendants are accused of pocketing came from banks. About $200,000 came from would-be home buyers' pockets, he said.

Ivey said many of the properties in the undeveloped subdivision have gone into foreclosure. "This is the kind of greed that has gotten us in the trouble we are in as a nation," he said.