April 15, 2001
Denise ODonnell, Esq,
United States Attorney, WNY District
138 Delaware Ave., Buffalo 14201, NY
RE: April 27 Sentencing of King brothers
Dear Ms. ODonnell:
The April 27 sentencing of the King bothers (Charles & William) on their HUD-FHA scam is an opportunity to address a major corrupt dynamic in Buffalo’s struggling low-income neighborhoods.
HUD inaction on high profile HUD-funded “block busters” such as Frank Parlato Jr. has resulted in a virtual epidemic of charlatans preying on declining neighborhoods. Parlato made $8 to $10 million in profits selling 800-1000 FHA insured houses over a dozen years. By skillfully re-inventing himself, he became Tonawanda Independence Party chair & a Beat columnist by threatening struggling Buffalo Beat with a lawsuit if there were “errors” in my update of his scam three years after 1997 exposure. New analysis showed that 10 of 11 Parlato buyers on Roebling Avenue lost their homes in foreclosure. And only 6 of 15 “successful buyers” on the West Side publicly profiled by Parlato are securely in their homes three years later.
The newest housing charlatans are boy-girlfriend partners Venere Hutchinson & Dana Upcher who bought dozens of HUD-foreclosed houses (usually under $2000 each). Working with corrupt appraisers, they leveraged several million of fraudulent mortgages, 20 of them currently in foreclosure. The most dramatic example is 490 Linwood Avenue, where they got TWO mortgages totaling $277,330 on their (non-HUD) $13,000 purchase. The $157,330 mortgage from Associates Home Equity (Irving, Texas) is in foreclosure; the second (for $120,000 from Alliance Fund, Orangeburg, NY) is bound to follow.
Incredibly, although city & HUD housing officials are fully aware of the Hutchinson-Upcher scam, they have taken no public action. Nor has the media seen fit to expose a major scandal.
Indeed, there seems to be high level indifference to housing corruption despite ever-increasing squalor in low-income neighborhoods. Recently Erie County Independence Party Chair, Realtor Charley Flynn (Erie Relocation Realty, Tupper & Elmwood), a close friend of Parlato, sold his first FHA scam house. Tragically, Flynn is a Masiello-appointee on the BMHA (Housing Authority) Board of Commissioners (which last year got $30 million in HUD subsidies to house about 7% of Buffalo’s approximate 110,000 poor at exorbitant cost).
Buffalo, in deep trouble as one of the poorest, most segregated, & fastest shrinking cities, is plagued by “Big Government . . .Small Thinking”. Far-reaching reform of HUD waste & corruption is a pressing priority, but HUD’s Inspector General in Buffalo’s HUD Office is silent.
Please use your opportunity to declare that stealing from tax-funded programs for the poor cannot be winked-at. A good way to start would be publicly sentencing Charles & William King to live in a HUD house & work in adjacent low income neighborhoods, undoing some of the damage such scams cause.
Also, please call for HUD-reform of rules enabling “King of FHA scams” Frank Parlato Jr. to evade prosecution. His FHA housing scam was profiled by Chicago-based, grass-roots activist National Peoples’ Action as he used his ill-gotten millions to re-invent himself locally. Please do not allow the King brothers to do the same. They formed several new housing businesses entities last summer, apparently preparing to follow Parlato’s successful model. (Parlato has historically operated under TEN different business names).
Urgently,
Richard Kern, MSW
Cc. Buffalo News; HUD Secretary Martinez; NYS Attorney General; VOICE Buffalo;
Strategic Planning Commissioner Ryan; M. Kuzma, ESQ; Community groups
354 Baynes St. Buffalo, N.Y. (716) 882-2388 Kernwatch@AOL.com
