By: Las Vegas Now Staff
The Channel 8 I-Team has learned that a local businessman is under arrest and charged with multiple felony counts in a complicated mortgage scam.
Matthew Marlon was arrested on New Year's Eve. Marlon is the brother of Doctor Anthony Marlon, who is the chairman of the locally based Sierra Health Services.
The arrest was made by agents with the Nevada Secretary of State's office.
Investigators allege it is a complicated scheme involving shell corporations, even using the victims' names on bogus stock certificates used to get around paying taxes.
Wednesday afternoon, Larry Granville, one of Marlon's alleged victims, told Eyewitness News how he was lured into a deal that sounded too good to be true.
“For the sum of the mortgage plus $200 in good faith — cash,” said Granville as he read from the deed of sale he and his wife signed.
Ownership was then transferred to a company Granville has never heard of called Coffcourt.
The man who was purportedly buying the property identified himself only as Peter Bartoli.
But investigators say he was really 64-year-old Matthew Marlon. Granville said it all started with a letter in the mail.
“It said he was interested in my house — that if I was interested to call him,” he said.
Granville says the man he identified in a photo lineup as Marlon was very convincing.
“So it sounded gravy. I was getting rid of the house anyway — I was going to file bankruptcy. It was like a godsend,” he said.
Secretary of State Ross Miller says with today's mortgage crisis, there are people trying to take advantage of the situation.
“In essence, he was contacting homeowners with the premise that they were going to be foreclosed on their house and he would attempt to buy them out and pay off all of their encumbrances and wasn't in essence paying off anything. The homes would be foreclosed on — he was subsequently renting the homes out and collecting the income,” said Miller.
As for Larry Granville, he says should have paid attention to the signs that something was amiss.
“My mother always told me, “Nobody gives something for nothing.” I figured I was going to get something for nothing because was going to pay off everything,” he said.
Through a spokesman at Sierra Health Services, Matthew Marlon's brother had no comment on the arrest.
Matthew Marlon will be arraigned in Las Vegas Justice Court tomorrow morning.
The Secretary of State is using this opportunity as another cautionary tale — use a professional real estate agent and title company and don't believe anyone who says they will pay off your mortgage.
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