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Arraignment Date Set For Man Accused Of Selling Foreclosed Homes

DENVER (CBS4) - An arraignment date has been set for a second person charged in an alleged scheme to occupy homes under foreclosure in Colorado. The homes remain occupied or are sometimes sold or rented.

Rudy Breda, along with Alfonso Carrillo, is accused of taking over houses and then selling them to unsuspecting Spanish-speaking people.

Last August a neighbor called a real estate company to say people were in what should have been an empty house. Sonya Williams was the agent who had the house listed. When she arrived she met Breda.

"We waited for the police to come, and when he came out, he said, 'This property doesn't belong to you any more, it belongs to me,' " Williams said.

The lockbox had been removed as well as the "For Sale" sign and a misspelled "No Trespassing" sign was posted.

Breda presented a document called a "Deed of Mortgage" filed with the Denver Clerk and Recorder. It claimed Americans Against Waste Of Tax Dollars had claimed the property. The document was notarized, but with a name of someone whose notary authorization had expired.

"They were taking the house and they would get these buyers and then they would go out and show these buyers several homes," Public Realty owner Verne Harris said.

Alfonso Carrillo and Rudy Breda
Alfonso Carrillo and Rudy Breda (credit: Denver District Attorney's Office)

Later a woman and four children were about to move in. The woman claimed she had bought the house and produced a $5,000 receipt.

"They literally went to the property, re-keyed it, and then gave her the key and said, 'Here's your property,' " Williams said.

But they didn't own it.

She said the home and the keys came from Carrillo. He is charged, along with Breda, in an alleged scheme in which homes under foreclosure are illegally occupied.

CBS4 found more than a dozen of the homes along the Front Range and in Grand County connected to the same people.

Carrillo and Breda have both been charged in Denver District Court with a grand jury investigating further.

Breda has claimed under the law he has a right to take possession of a house that is vacant. In lawsuits, he claims the real villains are banks involved in foreclosures that are based on fraud.

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