Mortgage Burden for Bales Familiar Story for U.S. Troops

[FarCenter]

While many soldiers have shared the burden of mortgage payments that ballooned and home values that plummeted during the housing crisis, Robert and Karilyn Bales were in a much deeper financial hole than most.

“I’ve rarely seen staff sergeants who lived in $300,000 houses,” said John S. Odom Jr., a retired Air Force judge advocate and a partner in Jones, Odom & Politz LLP in Shreveport, Louisiana.

...

The couple borrowed $506,250 on the two residential properties in October 2006, public records show -- $178,500 on a house in Auburn and $327,750 on a home in Lake Tapps. Today, the two houses have a combined assessed value of $358,100, or 29 percent less than the initial loan amounts, county records in Washington state show.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-19/mortgage-burden-for-bales-familiar-story-for-u-s-troops.html

So Bales was probably engaged in mortgage fraud, which would be consistent with his pre 2001 record as a stockbroker in Ohio and Florida.

[TorchTheWitch]

1. Bales was found by financial regulators to have engaged in fraud

among other things...

http://news.yahoo.com/afghan-murder-suspect-bales-took-life-savings-says-223934030--abc-news.html

<snip>
Robert Bales, the staff sergeant accused of massacring Afghan civilians, enlisted in the U.S. Army at the same time he was trying to avoid answering allegations he defrauded an elderly Ohio couple of their life savings in a stock fraud, according to federal documents reviewed by ABC News.

"He robbed me of my life savings," Gary Liebschner of Carroll, Ohio told ABC News.

Financial regulators found that Bales "engaged in fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, churning, unauthorized trading and unsuitable investments," according to a report on Bales filed in 2003. Bales and his associates were ordered to pay Liebschner $1,274,000 in compensatory and punitive damages but have yet to do so, according to Liebschner.