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Shenandoah Adams Sr., 54, of New Providence initially bought an East Orange site on Hilton Street in 2014 on behalf of his property management company, then arranged for a $153,562 loan to a “close associate” knowing that person didn’t have the money to pay his company the balance of the $225,000 purchase price, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
At the March 2015 closing, Adams had his associate write a worthless check to cover what was a $90,280.47 balance and promised not to cash it, Carpenito said.
Adams lied on a signed settlement statement that the associate had paid that balance, the U.S. attorney said.
He then used the proceeds from the loan to pay off $100,000 on the Hilton Street mortgage while writing a check for $26,335.30 to his property management company, Carpenito said.
Once the mortgage payments went into substantial arrears, Adams arranged for his associate to sell the property for $255,000 to another associate, the U.S. attorney said.
He and the first associate then convinced an out-of-state representative of the mortgage servicer to reduce the payoff amount to $190,000, he said.
At Adams’s direction, the associate cashed a check for $20,665.34 of the reduction and gave the money to him, Carpenito said.
He wasn't done.
In March 2015, Adams landed a contract with the Orange Public Library for his electrical and plumbing business.
The company, VH Electrical and Plumbing, was to replace the library’s HVAC/chiller unit for $49,000, funded by a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Grant to the library and Orange, Carpenito said.
Adams won the contract after giving the library’s executive director, Timur Davis, two fake quotes purportedly from two vendors “to give the false impression that VH would replace the library’s chiller for less than those other vendors,” the U.S. attorney said.
Once he was hired, Adams sent Davis records “to give the false impression that Adams was taking steps to order a replacement chiller,” he said.
Adams collected $40,000 and didn’t do the work, Carpenito said.
Davis pleaded guilty two weeks ago to making false statements to HUD in connection with the project.
Adams, meanwhile, was indicted federally on six counts of wire fraud and two counts of making false statements in connection with a mortgage loan.
He was being brought Thursday afternoon before a magistrate judge in U.S. District Court in Newark.
Carpenito credited special agents of the FBI, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General IRS-Criminal Investigation with making the case, being handled for the government by Assistant U.S. Attorneys J Imbert and Cari Fais of his Special Prosecutions Division.
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