A Chicago federal judge has dismissed racketeering charges against a handful of defendants accused in a wide-ranging $25-million lawsuit of swindling commercial real estate investors by inflating the appraisals of hotel and motel properties, offering loans to investors based on the exaggerated appraisal, and, when the hotel or motel failed, seizing the property to sell at “extortionate prices.”
A federal judge has blocked the bid of a former appraisal reviewer who blew the whistle on alleged fraud at a failed suburban bank from collecting as much as a quarter of any settlement the directors of the bank may reach with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, upholding the ruling of another judge who found the FDIC cannot be considered a “government” agency for the purposes of the false claims law upon which the former bank employee has staked his claim.
