Tax-Shelter Schemer Guilty in 2nd Case : Courts: Encino man pleads no contest to 11 felony counts in an unrelated real estate scam.

An Encino man who was sentenced last week to seven years in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $6 million in restitution to victims of a tax-shelter scheme pleaded no contest Wednesday to 11 counts of felony grand theft, forgery and preparing false documents in an unrelated real estate scam.

Mark Roy Anderson, 36, entered his plea in Van Nuys Superior Court and is expected to be sentenced later this month to six years and eight months in state prison to be served concurrently with his federal prison term, said Deputy Dist. Atty. James A. Baker. “This guy never quits with schemes,” Baker said.

Conducting business through his Western Reserve Corp. and Westlor, both real estate holding companies based at one time in the San Fernando Valley, Anderson engaged in a series of transactions, selling and trading property that he did not own, Baker said. In many of the cases, Anderson would prey upon property owners already suffering financially.

“He would find distressed property in which the income was barely paying the mortgage and it looked like the property was about to be foreclosed on,” Baker said.

Anderson would make an all-cash bid on the property to entice the owners, then he entangled them in lengthy negotiations lasting for weeks or months until they were desperate to sell, Baker said.

“They had to make a deal,” he said.

But instead of money, Anderson would then offer to trade property. The problem, Baker said, was that Anderson either did not own the property he traded or the property was in an equally distressed state and had been acquired fraudulently. Anderson would then gain ownership of the property and sometimes trade it for property that had equity.

In other cases, investors gave Anderson thousands of dollars to become part owners of various buildings he pretended to own, only to find that Anderson never owned them.

Baker could not pinpoint the exact monetary loss suffered by the seven victims named in the case, but the buildings Anderson “stole by false pretenses” were worth millions of dollars, he said.

Anderson will also be ordered to pay $675,000 to two victims and a company when he is sentenced, Baker said.

Anderson’s attorney, Tamar R. Toister, said, “He has basically all along denied all wrongdoing.” She declined to comment further.

In the federal case, Anderson pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud related to a tax-shelter scheme involving historic buildings. Anderson raised $47 million from investors through his Beverly Hills-based Marlin Properties by promising investors federal tax benefits for investments in a plan to rehabilitate historic buildings.

He pleaded guilty to charges involving 300 investors who put money into three limited partnerships organized to buy and refurbish historical sites.

Anderson is out on bail and is scheduled to surrender Aug. 1 to begin his prison sentence.