Three arrested for inflated appraisals

A Newport Beach real estate appraisal executive has been charged with nearly two dozen felonies related to allegedly giving inflated appraisals on homes so that he and his accomplices’ firm would get more money through loans.

An arrest warrant has been issued for Michael John Bell, 32, of Corona del Mar, who prosecutors claim worked with James Merritt Eaton, 60, and his son Brian Chandler Eaton, 28, both of Laguna Beach, in the scheme, according to a release from the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Authorities said the Eatons operated a real estate appraisal firm out of Irvine and hired Bell to help them. Together, the three used Eaton’s Landmark Equities Group to inflate appraisals on homes in California, Nevada and Arizona. The inflated appraisals are attractive for lenders like Quick Loan Funding because the more money they loan, the more money they make.

Prosecutors claim that the Eatons forced Landmark employees to give them their work passwords and electronic signatures, which they used to adjust appraisals between $4,000 and $40,000 secretly. In one case, James Eaton fired a branch executive who refused to give him her employees’ passwords and electronic signatures and after she was gone, used her signature anyway, prosecutors said.

Bell and the others are charged with 17 felonies of grand theft by false pretense, two counts of identity theft and one charge of conspiracy to defraud another property. The men have been slapped with sentencing enhancements for white collar crimes and property damage, too. They all face up to 18 years in prison, if convicted on all counts.