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 group of plaintiffs have filed a racketeering suit in Cook County Circuit Court, alleging that for more than 10 years, several major players on the commercial real estate and financing scene have swindled hundreds of victims out of millions of dollars through loans based on inflated appraisals of hotels and motels across the Midwest.
