The Attorney General put a button on a Queens deed theft ring Wednesday, sentencing the final member of a five-person band to a hefty stint in prison.
Real estate salesperson Stacie Saunders got three to nine years after a jury convicted her of 18 felony counts, including grand larceny, money laundering, forgery and conspiracy, the attorney general’s office said in a release.
Saunders had teamed up with disbarred attorney Anyekache Hercules, ringleader Marcus Wilcher and two others — Jerry Currin and Dean Lloyd — to steal and sell three homes. They made $1 million off the thefts.
The scheme worked thus: The group would suss out shoddy houses with absentee, often elderly owners in Jamaica and St. Albans, then market those properties at low-ball prices to draw quick offers.
Once they hooked an interested buyer, the ring members would use forged driver’s licenses and social security cards to open bank accounts in the names of the original homeowners. They would then use those accounts and shell companies to funnel proceeds to themselves.
AG Letitia James indicted the ring in late 2022, arresting Saunders, Hercules and Currin. Wilcher and Lloyd were at large for some time. It was happening alongside a larger push by James’ office to make deed theft a standalone crime rather than a facet of other infractions such as grand larceny.
Wilcher, who stole two other homes outside of the ring, according to the AG, received the same sentence as Saunders: three to nine years. Hercules, who had previously been convicted of deed theft, got one and a half to three years.Â
It’s unclear if Currin and Lloyd, who pleaded guilty to Offering a False Instrument for Filing — submitting a falsified deed, for example — received prison time.
All told, Wilcher and Saunders caught a bit of a break. The maximum sentence for their charges was 15 years, the OAG said in 2022.
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3 arrested in Queens deed theft ring, 5 at large: AG
