BAKERSFIELD, CA -- The gavel may never have fallen on Crisp and Cole and their associates, if it weren't for one man, Bakersfield appraiser Gary Crabtree.
It was Crabtree who first came to 17 news, in October of 2006, asking for an interview so he could go on record with the evidence he was uncovering.
He said he was getting threats to stop snooping around.
Now Crabtree, who was maligned by some within his own industry for causing such a ruckus, stands vindicated.
It was early on in 2006, when Bakersfield's housing bubble was fully inflated, that things just weren't measuring up for the 70-year-old Crabtree.
"I was noticing very unusual sales", Crabtree said.
During the course of his normal assessment of home values, some very abnormal transactions were popping up. Homes were being sold at prices unusually high for the market, and then resold weeks later at a much lower price..
"I started looking at the buyers and sellers and common names started appearing."
Crabtree reached out to lenders, to warn them of possible fraud, but was told to mind his own business.
He contacted the district attorney's office and was told they didn't have the resources, that it was a white collar crime and if it was true, there was no real victim.
Then he called the State Department of Real Estate and eventually the FBI, giving them a snapshot of the brazen mortgage fraud scheme.
"Once I saw that they had taken up the case, and then had reached out to me, then I knew it was serious", he said.
In September of 2007, FBI agents raided the offices of Crisp and Cole, and their mortgage firm, Tower Lending.
Seven years later, Crisp and Cole's house of cards has completely collapsed.
Of course, Crabtree had ample motivation for doing what he did. He wanted lenders, his clients, to know about the fraud. But he also saw it as a business opportunity; to become the go-to guy for lenders intent on protecting their investments from fraud.
"I knew that lenders wanted to know about this fraud, that they wanted to protect their portfolios", he said. "Thus when I reported something they would hire me to do a review appraisal on the property so we could prove the fraud."
But Crabtree says that assumption proved a bit naïve.
"That was the farthest thing from the truth. Only one lender gave me an appraisal job", Crabtree said.
His whistle blowing, coupled with the Crisp and Cole scandal and a dramatic surge in home foreclosures, left Bakersfield's tumultuous real estate market with a tarnished reputation, and Crabtree's business suffered because of it.
"Mysteriously, all my lender work went away," Crabtree recounted.
Still there are those in the real estate industry who applaud Gary Crabtree for what he did.
Jon Busby, owner of Team Busby, a local real estate firm said, "Gary Crabtree cannot be bought. He saw wrongdoing and he tried to expose it to protect our profession. And isn't it funny that now he's busier than ever, because he did the right thing and he tried to protect the lenders but they didn't want to listen."
Beyond the professional motivation for exposing Crisp, Cole and their kin, Crabtree says his Christian faith compelled him to blow the whistle.
"I thought of Leviticus 11:9 which says: 'Thou shalt not steal or deal falsely or lie to one another or defraud your neighbor.'
But perhaps the most troubling off all revelations to come from Gary Crabtree's journey through the mortgage fraud jungle is the glaring indifference to it all by the lending industry.
"As a matter of fact, they're the ones who fueled the fire because once they saw these sub-primes and these high rates, they wanted more. And Crisp and Cole and those individuals were more than happy to accommodate them. The wheels of justice turn slowly but obviously you reap what you sow," Crabtree said.
There are several glaring gaps in the prosecution of this case.
Not a single appraiser was ever indicted, and experts say you couldn't pull off this fraud scheme without an appraiser "hitting the numbers" in order to get those inflated loans.
Only one appraiser in Bakersfield had his license suspended for 60 days, but his insurance company also paid a lender $590,000 for his misconduct.
Prosecutors in Fresno Monday refused to answer any of our questions on the Crisp and Cole case.
It was Crabtree who first came to 17 news, in October of 2006, asking for an interview so he could go on record with the evidence he was uncovering.
He said he was getting threats to stop snooping around.
Now Crabtree, who was maligned by some within his own industry for causing such a ruckus, stands vindicated.
It was early on in 2006, when Bakersfield's housing bubble was fully inflated, that things just weren't measuring up for the 70-year-old Crabtree.
"I was noticing very unusual sales", Crabtree said.
During the course of his normal assessment of home values, some very abnormal transactions were popping up. Homes were being sold at prices unusually high for the market, and then resold weeks later at a much lower price..
"I started looking at the buyers and sellers and common names started appearing."
Crabtree reached out to lenders, to warn them of possible fraud, but was told to mind his own business.
He contacted the district attorney's office and was told they didn't have the resources, that it was a white collar crime and if it was true, there was no real victim.
Then he called the State Department of Real Estate and eventually the FBI, giving them a snapshot of the brazen mortgage fraud scheme.
"Once I saw that they had taken up the case, and then had reached out to me, then I knew it was serious", he said.
In September of 2007, FBI agents raided the offices of Crisp and Cole, and their mortgage firm, Tower Lending.
Seven years later, Crisp and Cole's house of cards has completely collapsed.
Of course, Crabtree had ample motivation for doing what he did. He wanted lenders, his clients, to know about the fraud. But he also saw it as a business opportunity; to become the go-to guy for lenders intent on protecting their investments from fraud.
"I knew that lenders wanted to know about this fraud, that they wanted to protect their portfolios", he said. "Thus when I reported something they would hire me to do a review appraisal on the property so we could prove the fraud."
But Crabtree says that assumption proved a bit naïve.
"That was the farthest thing from the truth. Only one lender gave me an appraisal job", Crabtree said.
His whistle blowing, coupled with the Crisp and Cole scandal and a dramatic surge in home foreclosures, left Bakersfield's tumultuous real estate market with a tarnished reputation, and Crabtree's business suffered because of it.
"Mysteriously, all my lender work went away," Crabtree recounted.
Still there are those in the real estate industry who applaud Gary Crabtree for what he did.
Jon Busby, owner of Team Busby, a local real estate firm said, "Gary Crabtree cannot be bought. He saw wrongdoing and he tried to expose it to protect our profession. And isn't it funny that now he's busier than ever, because he did the right thing and he tried to protect the lenders but they didn't want to listen."
Beyond the professional motivation for exposing Crisp, Cole and their kin, Crabtree says his Christian faith compelled him to blow the whistle.
"I thought of Leviticus 11:9 which says: 'Thou shalt not steal or deal falsely or lie to one another or defraud your neighbor.'
But perhaps the most troubling off all revelations to come from Gary Crabtree's journey through the mortgage fraud jungle is the glaring indifference to it all by the lending industry.
"As a matter of fact, they're the ones who fueled the fire because once they saw these sub-primes and these high rates, they wanted more. And Crisp and Cole and those individuals were more than happy to accommodate them. The wheels of justice turn slowly but obviously you reap what you sow," Crabtree said.
There are several glaring gaps in the prosecution of this case.
Not a single appraiser was ever indicted, and experts say you couldn't pull off this fraud scheme without an appraiser "hitting the numbers" in order to get those inflated loans.
Only one appraiser in Bakersfield had his license suspended for 60 days, but his insurance company also paid a lender $590,000 for his misconduct.
Prosecutors in Fresno Monday refused to answer any of our questions on the Crisp and Cole case.