Osceola County Clerk of Court Armando Ramirez hired a company owned by a felon — convicted in a $64 million scam in the 1990s that stole money from the U.S. government — to review county mortgage records last year.
Ramirez employed David Paul Krieger's company, DK Consultants LLC of San Antonio, in June 2014 and paid the company $34,500 to find out whether Wall Street banks had illegally foreclosed on hundreds of local homes, records show.
Foreclosures remain a hot-button issue in Osceola County, where slightly more than 58,277 owners have lost their homes since 2007. That's 45.6 percent of total housing, the country's second-highest foreclosure rate, according to RealtyTrac.com.
Ramirez selected Krieger's company to audit Osceola foreclosures without seeking other bids, records show. Krieger is director and managing member of the company, records show.
"[It] shall be for the purpose of supplying forensic evidence to the State's Attorney for criminal and eventual civil prosecution," according to the contract Ramirez signed July 12, 2014. "The clerk agrees that he has exercised care and due diligence in determining the competency of [Krieger] to conduct such a forensic examination."
But federal court records show Krieger took part in an anti-government movement in the 1990s that funded itself through nationwide mortgage fraud.
Known as Family Farm Preservation, Krieger and others sold fake money orders to those seeking to pay off government-insured mortgages, according to an indictment unsealed May 16, 1996, in federal court in Milwaukee.
That was the same day Krieger, now 62, was arrested in east Texas by FBI agents after a three-year investigation. Records show there were many involved in selling the money orders, but only nine were charged in the scheme.
Krieger was held for five days in the Smith County Jail in Tyler, Texas, and charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and six lesser felony charges involving three counts of fraud and three counts of swindling.
The indictment stated that in a single week in 1993 Krieger sold and mailed $344,733 in bogus money orders for clients to banks, government offices and mortgage companies. Not just a dealer, Krieger used the worthless money orders to try to pay his own debts, including $5,984 owed in Kansas for child support, records show.
Krieger avoided prison by testifying during the federal trial in Milwaukee against his co-defendants, who received up to 16 years in prison. He was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and sentenced Feb. 5, 1997, to three months of home confinement followed by three years of probation and a $1,000 fine. The other charges against Krieger were dropped as part of the plea bargain.
Additionally, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development barred Krieger in 1997 from doing any business with HUD for three years.
"Subject was a minor player in a major scheme," HUD records state.
Krieger would not discuss the audit findings and did not respond to questions about his criminal history.
Since his conviction, Krieger has worked as a wedding entertainer and a voice-over specialist known as Airwave Dave, and he appeared as an Austin Powers impersonator more than 50 times a year at minor-league baseball and hockey games across the South, according to his websites and newspaper coverage.
A radio and TV reporter before his arrest, Krieger has written two self-published books on foreclosure and re-establishing credit and now works as a paralegal and consultant. He appears regularly on talk shows, including Alex Jones' "Infowars" and "The Power Hour" with Joyce Riley.
Ramirez recently declined to comment on how he checked Krieger's background. He did not respond to questions about when he learned of Krieger's past.
Krieger and a team of his handpicked auditors and assistants spent five days at the Osceola County courthouse from July 14 to July 18, 2014, copying records, records show.
Ramirez presented the findings Jan. 23 to Orange-Osceola State Attorney Jeff Ashton for prosecution, records show.
Days later, Ashton declined to prosecute.
"Mr. Ashton has gone on record that our office reviewed the report, but from the perspective of a criminal investigation — it did not meet certain criteria. There were no witness statements, no victims, no evidentiary trail," Ashton's spokeswoman Angela Starke wrote in February. "The issue should be first investigated by law enforcement, thus we provided the report to the Osceola County Sheriff's Office."
In mid-February, Ramirez turned over 17 cartons of property records for the Sheriff's Office to review.
The sheriff's Economic Crimes Unit has spent about 1,000 hours investigating Ramirez's claims without finding a single crime, spokeswoman Twis Lizasuain said Monday.
The investigation has cost taxpayers at least $23,700 for the Sheriff's Office man-hours on top of the $34,500 spent to hire Krieger's company and $985 to send certified letters to 152 alleged victims named in the audit, records show. That's a total price tag so far of $59,185.
"At this time, detectives have not identified any victims," Lizasuain said this week.
The sheriff's investigation continues.
U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, who describes himself as a friend and political ally of Ramirez's, supports the audit.
"The audit showed the clerk's responsiveness to public complaints about fraud in mortgage company filings in his own office, as well as his concern about unnecessary and improper foreclosures," he said Thursday. "The clerk deserves praise for acting against mortgage fraud in a responsible manner, for the protection of the community and the integrity of his office."
Senior researcher Susan K. Thompson contributed to this report.hcurtis@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5257
