Word that former Gov. Mike Easley and his wife received a 25 percent discount from a coastal developer named in a lawsuit suggests they may have unwittingly helped increase the prices that others paid.
More than 200 plaintiffs in one of the largest alleged mortgage-fraud cases in state history have said for months that they were duped into paying inflated prices for coastal lots.
No one involved in the fraud cases has claimed that the Easleys were knowingly involved. But the $137,000 discount they received on their lot was not shown in the $550,000 sale price.
Because the sale price was overstated, it could have inflated the sale prices of adjacent properties.
"When you have all these politically connected players and they are setting up pricing that is not reflected in the records at the courthouse, how are my clients ever going to get a fair market price?" said S. Jill Pisner, a McLean, Va., lawyer whose firm filed the first and largest of several lawsuits alleging mortgage fraud in two coastal developments in North Carolina and one in South Carolina.
The Carteret tax supervisor said in a recent interview that when the price actually paid for land is overstated in public documents, appraisals for other lots can become distorted as a result.
The Easleys bought a choice waterfront lot in Cannonsgate, a gated Carteret County subdivision, in 2005. The next year, Easley said through a spokeswoman that he had paid the listed price.
Documents obtained recently show that the developer, Charlotte-based R.A. North Development, had given the Easleys a $137,000 break. The deal enabled them to walk away from the closing with $135,000 in cash.
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