Daylight is visible through the partially boarded-up windows of 4716 Pimlico Road, a vacant caved-in shell on a dreary block of West Baltimore.

The front steps are piled high with snow, but the steps next-door are shoveled. People also live in this block. A man carrying groceries last week walked in a landscape awash in foreclosure notices, “We buy houses” signs and boarded windows.In 2009, 4716 Pimlico was purchased as an investment by a Cameroonian immigrant from the D.C. suburbs who at the time had more than $24,000 in the bank and a steady job paying $2,426 a month.

Or so the loan documents said.

In reality, prosecutors say, the man was a Target employee, whose biweekly take-home pay was between $530 and $670 and whose bank balance on August 11, 2009 was $198.56.

The buyer was actually a straw purchaser, persuaded that he could qualify for a loan by Alberic Okou Agodio, according to a recent 16-count indictment of the Bethesda-based Agodio by a federal grand jury.

The $3.8 million mortgage fraud scheme alleged in a 46-page indictment unsealed on Feb. 20 is complex, but the end result is simple and – for a city as buffeted as any other by the housing market collapse and inured to years of blight and vacancy – predictable.

“Agodio eventually allowed all of the mortgages to go into default,” according to the release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office Baltimore Division.

“Agodio used the names of immigrants and students, along with false financial information, to obtain approximately $3.8 million in home mortgage loans to buy approximately three dozen row houses in Baltimore,” the release says, noting that they are all “in default or foreclosure.”

Inexperienced Students and Immigrants

Identified in the indictment only by their initials, the straw purchasers have jobs in places like Trader Joe’s, Macy’s and Quiznos.

One was a part time worker with the D.C. Water and Sewage Authority whose year-to-date 2009 earnings in late December were just over $8,000.

None of these purchasers had any experience in real estate transactions or the funds needed to buy the properties, according to the indictment.

Agodio told each straw purchaser that he would prepare the loan application; manage the property after its purchase by finding renters, collecting the rent and paying the mortgage; and would pay the straw purchaser $7,000 to $8,000 after the transaction closed. He further promised to sell the property in three years and give the individual up to 80% of the sale proceeds, the indictment alleges.

But prosecutors say he also lied about the straw purchasers’ assets and earnings in loan applications. Agodio provided the necessary funds for the down payment and the buyer’s share of the closing costs, causing the settlement statement form to inaccurately reflect that the down payments and closing costs had been paid by the straw purchasers, the indictment charges.

Following the closings, prosecutors say, Agodio retained the keys to each property and assumed the responsibility for finding renters and paying the mortgage. The named purchasers never lived in the properties. Agodio eventually allowed all of the mortgages to go into default.

A Substantial Commission

During the course of this scheme,  prosecutors say, Agodio and his co-conspirators obtained approximately $3.8 million in home mortgage loans to buy the row houses.

A co-conspirator who owned the row houses paid Agodio an undisclosed kickback from the proceeds he received from the title company on each transaction, totaling over $1.2 million, the indictment says.

“Agodio used these funds to reimburse himself for making the down payments and closings costs, to pay the promised amount to the straw purchasers and to keep a substantial commission for himself,” according to the release from the U.S. Attorney’s office.

After a 2010 fire occurred at 4716 Pimlico Road, the indictment also says, Agodio falsely identified  himself as the straw purchaser to a State Farm claims officer in order to collect $106,500 in insurance. He allegedly gave the straw purchaser’s date of birth, said he’d lived in the home since buying it and claimed that, while he worked at Target, he also traveled to and from Cameroon as part of an import/export business.

The indictment seeks forfeiture of $3,925,841.

Agodio faces multiple charges of conspiring to commit wire fraud and for mail fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft.

“A Better Deal for Everyone”

Agodio, 30, was the founder and principal employee of A&O Consulting, LLC, and of Bethesda-based real estate firm AORE Investments, Inc.

(A staffer at AORE told The Brew Agodio’s attorney would call with any response. We have not received one yet.)

Agodio did talk to The Baltimore Sun in 2011 – for a story about the flurry of buyers snapping up city rowhouses for under $10,000, “the cost of an old car.”

“Alberic ‘Al’ Agodio, whose Bethesda-based AORE Investments Inc. rehabs homes in Baltimore, said the shells going for $10,000 today were selling for $30,000 or $40,000 several years ago,” the Business section article said.

These properties, rehabbed, would have sold for $150,000 a few years ago, Agodio told the paper, but he was pricing them at $80,000.

“It’s a better deal for everybody,” Agodio said.