Two Long Island men cheated Brooklyn homeowners out of their deeds with the swipe of a pen and lined their own pockets by renting the properties, bilking their victims for huge sums of money, according to Brooklyn’s top lawman.
Prosecutors charged Danny Noble and his alleged sidekick Romelo Gray with running a fraud operation that falsified the deeds to nine properties over a span of five years, allegedly targeting homes whose owners did not live there and rarely visited, according to Thompson.
“It is shocking that this defendant was allegedly able to carry out such a brazen scheme, stealing properties right out from under their owners,” said District Attorney Ken Thompson.
The alleged fraudsters stole the deeds to properties across Brooklyn and Queens, including four homes in Fort Greene, Thompson said.
Noble cashed in on the properties by renting them out and posing as the rightful landlord, Thompson said. At one property, a recently renovated brownstone, he collected $1,500 per month each from tenants in two apartments in the building, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors accuse Noble of transferring five of the properties into his own name, three into a limited-liability corporation called 69 Adelphi Street LLC, and a third to an unnamed third party.
The alleged scheme unraveled after Noble and Grey allegedly falsified the deed to a Canarsie home on a visit with the intended buyer, and booted the tenants. But when the buyer began renovating the house, an employees of a nearby business owned by the home’s rightful owner notified his boss, who called the police, leading to an investigation that linked Noble and Grey to the other properties in Fort Greene, East New York, Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Queens, according to the indictment.
Noble faces 25 years in prison and is being held on $500,000 bond or $250,000 cash bail, while Gray facing as many as four years in prison, is being held in lieu of $25,000 bond and $5,000 cash bail. Adelphi LLC, also named in the indictment, faces a fine of up to $10,000 if charges stick.
Attorneys for the men did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
