Two years ago, when [Ina MacArthur] decided to sell her property – an entire city block on St. Nicholas Ave. worth up to $15 million – she suddenly found herself with two new best friends.
One of them now owns the property, but as of today McArthur has only received $20,000.
“I was swindled,” the retired public school teacher said. “That’s it.”
Stephen Caputo, her lawyer, said, “She’s a lonely, trusting person, and they got her.”
McArthur’s new friends were Eric Abakporo, 47, a real estate lawyer and pastor of the Pentecostal Deeper Life Bible Church in Jamaica, Queens, and Letanya Pierce, 38, his partner in real estate deals.
In a series of complex transactions that includes an apparently forged $500,000 certified check, Pierce took over the property, collected more than $600,000 in rents and received $1.8 million in cash from a mortgage she took out.
“I’ve gotten almost nothing,” McArthur said.
Read the rest of this sordid story: Daily News
Related: DA Investigates [Daily News]
Remmy Winston
April 6, 2008
Gdawg, you don’t even know the truth about Ms. McArther. Her name is McArther and she is no widow. This lady is smarter that you and me and all the lawyers put together. The building did not belong to her. It belonged to a corporation for which she is the president. You think she’s a victim? YOU DO NOT KNOW THIS LADY, DO YOU? The people you call scumbags I’m sure are the victims of this woman and those people who are interested in the property and want her to cry foul so they can get the property. Tell me, do you believe in “Innocent until proven guilty? It’s a good thing that the DA is investigating this. This is going to be a “good show”. And I am sure there are somethings the lady will not want the public to know. You know, like some skeletons in the cupboard. Let the law take its cause. And then we’ll see who the scumbags and the scoundrels are. By the way, the “scumbags as you call them have sued the Daily News, Ms. MacArther, and everyone involved for defamation of character. You can see the filed suit in the courts newspaper called The Courthouse News. This will be very interesting.
GDAWG
April 2, 2008
EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
God, I hope these scumbags go to jail and this old lady has family and / or friends with a ‘clue.’
narmer
April 2, 2008
“ DA probing uptown property ‘swindle’
BY WILLIAM SHERMAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, April 1st 2008, 4:00 AM
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has launched an investigation into the case of a 78-year-old widow who says her so-called friends swindled her out of her multimillion-dollar property.
The story of how Ina McArthur received only $20,000 for a Washington Heights property worth as much as $15 million was disclosed in Sunday’s Daily News.
Dan Castleman, chief of the district attorney’s Investigations Division, said Monday his office has issued numerous subpoenas on transactions involving the property, an entire block of buildings at St. Nicholas Ave. and 163rd St.”
click for full story [ny daily news].
Kenneth Fach
April 1, 2008
If we would all just abide by the Golden Rule.
GDAWG
March 31, 2008
I would hope that Ms. McArthur’s current attorney would place her soon to be return assets and all in a sensible trust account. Second, there is a nice prison cell(s) in upstate NY waiting for the two scumbags who preyed upon this sad woman.