A wealthy Texas auto dealer and some of his family members are alleged to have engaged in a complex, high-stakes fraudulent real estate scheme involving property worth approximately $200 million, court documents said.
In a Nov. 23 U.S. Bankruptcy Court Western Division of Texas document, WC Teakwood Plaza, LLC alleged a company called Anonymous Teakwood Lender and seven “anonymous” lenders purchased approximately $43 million in mortgages on the property.
Bryan Hardeman, a wealthy owner of Texas car dealerships and several of his family members, along with Justin Bayne and Mark Riley, are accused in the document of engaging in an elaborate scheme to defraud the owners of the real estate by sabotaging leases and potential sales.
Under the alleged scheme, Hardeman, through a company called Anonymous Successor Lender, coerced banks to sell their loans on the properties, according to attorneys for real investor Nate Paul, one of the owners.
Under the alleged scheme, Hardeman would then use the loan positions to force the properties into receivership. He would then allegedly conspire with the receiver, their lawyers, and a state district judge to ensure that full equity in the properties was transferred to Hardeman and his investors through a rigged auction scheme, the attorneys said in the filing.
In early 2020, Hardeman, Bayne and Riley allegedly gave mortgage lenders false information about the property owners “to induce them to sell their loans,” the court document states.
WC Teakwood was negotiating with Bancorp to modify its loan agreement when “Hardeman, Riley and/or Bayne approached Bancorp concerning a potential sale of the Teakwood Loan,” the court document states. “There was a reasonable probability that WC Teakwood and Bancorp would have entered into a modification of the Teakwood Loan Agreement but for Hardeman, Riley and/or Bayne’s interference in WC Teakwood’s lending relationship with Bancorp.”
When the real estate owners sought bankruptcy protection, the men allegedly pushed a false narrative that the property would be sold by the bankruptcy court in a sale “hopelessly rigged in favor of Anonymous Lenders through an insider receivership appointment,” the document states.
The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages for the alleged “civil conspiracy.”