Team 4 Update: W. Pa. Homeowners Among Alleged Victims In Mortgage Foreclosure Case

POSTED: 3:51 pm EDT July 31, 2008

UPDATED: 4:46 pm EDT July 31, 2008

People who are worried about mortgage foreclosure will do just about anything to save their homes -- and federal prosecutors say that's how an Ohio businessman found so many alleged victims in western Pennsylvania.

Four years after a Team 4 investigation tracked James Warsing down, he is now under federal indictment in Cleveland, where a federal grand jury accuses him of nine counts of mail fraud.
Related: Read The Indictment (PDF)

A federal indictment says WJW Enterprises visited local courthouses and got a list of homeowners who were in foreclosure proceedings with their mortgage lenders, then sent those homeowners a letter offering to help them save their house for a fee.

But the indictment claims WJW's owner failed to help anyone except himself.

When Team 4 first tracked Warsing down in February 2004 at his home in Ashtabula, Ohio, he professed his innocence.

"I'm getting tired of people making accusations. We do help thousands and thousands of people every day," Warsing said at the time.
Related: Watch The Original Team 4 Report From February 2004

Bette Goldberg, of Greensburg, has been subpoenaed to testify at Warsing's trial.

"I'm looking forward to it," Goldberg said. "I still want him to pay. He's hurt a lot of people. I look in the paper and I see sheriff's sales and my heart just breaks."

Goldberg said she and her husband gave Warsing's company $3,500 to negotiate on their behalf to stop foreclosure proceedings. Warsing took their money and never called their lender, she said.

"It was a lot of pain and suffering, and I am very angry, and I'll keep all the paperwork until the day I die," Goldberg said.

The indictment accuses Warsing of defrauding homeowners of over $500,000 by "requesting homeowners to provide him with sums of money to be used to negotiate with the lenders ... but, rather, the defendant used the monies ... for his own personal and business purposes."

Despite losing thousands, Goldberg was able to save her home by calling her lender personally.

"I wish people would just contact their mortgage companies," she said. "I know things are a mess right now with mortgages and financing and all that, but they have to talk to their mortgage companies and they have to get help."

Warsing is scheduled to stand trial in federal court in Cleveland on Oct. 20. He continues to maintain his innocence.

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