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Clearwater Lawyer Gets 10 Years For Real Estate Scam

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TBO.com

Published: October 21, 2008

  Graham Kligerman

TAMPA - A disbarred Clearwater lawyer was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for stealing millions in a real estate scheme, the U.S. attorney's office said.

Graham Daniel Kligerman, 34, also was ordered by U.S. District Judge Elizabeth A. Kovachevich to pay $6.5 million in restitution and to serve three years of supervised release after his prison term.

On Dec. 18, Kligerman had pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit bank, mail and wire fraud. Kligerman was disbarred in 2005.

When his law practice was failing, he diverted money from the real estate scam to himself and clients, according to court documents and federal prosecutors. The scheme, run from January 2004 through January 2006, involved 60 real estate transactions in which "straw buyers" were solicited and typically paid $2,500 to pose as purchasers of homes whose owners were in danger of foreclosure.

Kligerman and his co-conspirators – clients of his law firm who got a cut of the proceeds -- offered to pair homeowners with the straw purchasers who in turn would lease them their homes, court documents state.

Lenders provided money to these straw purchasers under the belief that they were buying the houses for themselves from the original homeowners, prosecutors say. But the straw purchasers borrowed more money than was owed on the first mortgage and the difference — the equity from the homes — went to the people who ran the scheme, prosecutors say.

Kligerman conducted the closing for about 60 of the transactions, prosecutors say.

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