City Treasurer's Home Among Those in Shady Deed Dealings

By Chris Bentley in News on Aug 31, 2011 9:30PM

Who owns your house? Chicago News Cooperative found an obscure Muslim sect called the Moorish Science Temple of America had filed deeds on more than 30 Chicago-area properties estimated to be worth more than $10 million.

A reporter for the Medill News Service first discovered the mysterious title on a deed for city treasurer Stephanie Neely’s home in Kenwood.

It’s apparently easy — and relatively inconspicuous — to make such bogus claims a matter of public record:

A person need merely fill out a blank deed purporting to show that the property’s owner is transferring the property to someone else. Once the document is notarized and a fee is paid to the recorder of deeds, the document is part of the official record of ownership.

The legitimate owner might not notice until he or she wants to sell or refinance the property, in which case the bonus deed could drag her into court.

Representatives from the Moorish Science Temple of America told Chicago News Cooperative the church had been the target of identity theft and denied any knowledge of the mysterious deeds in Chicago.

Ultimately whoever is behind the scheme appears to be engineering mortgage fraud:

In most of the Chicago cases, the victims are banks that are foreclosing on properties. In addition to E*Trade Bank, lenders caught up in the scheme include Deutsche Bank, Fifth Third Bank, CitiMortgage and JPMorgan Chase. In one case, people purporting to be temple members claimed ownership of a property belonging to an evangelical Christian church on the Far South Side.

At the request of Treasurer Neely, Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan is looking into the matter.