By Erin Delaney
Assistant District Attorney in El Paso County
In 2019, while assigned to the White Collar Unit of the El Paso County District Attorney’s Office, I was handed a new case to screen. The subject was Victor Bernard Dennis, the 39-year-old manager, director, and owner of KV Homes, LLC. Dennis was not a licensed real estate agent or mortgage lender or servicer (though he gave the impression he was), and he operated under several additional business names, none of which were registered with the State of Texas.
Between 2014 and 2017, Dennis advertised that he purchased homes “as is” on cardboard signs he posted on street corners and medians throughout the area surrounding Fort Bliss, our local Army post. Service members under orders to transfer away from Fort Bliss were eager to sell their homes and contacted Dennis because of this attractive offer. Dennis paid nothing to the service members for the homes, but instead represented he would assume their loans and take over their mortgage payments, a legal arrangement if handled properly. With this agreement, service members deeded their homes to Dennis, but he never legally assumed the mortgage loans on the homes and the mortgages remained in the original owners’ names.
Dennis also advertised the homes he acquired in this way for sale on websites and on signs posted in the area, attracting buyers with offers of owner financing for buyers with little or no credit. When interested buyers called about the homes, Dennis claimed to be the homeowner and gave personal tours. After feeling out what the buyers could afford, he quoted and received down payments ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, all of which he kept for himself. He also quoted a monthly payment roughly matching the existing mortgage payment on the homes.
Dennis and buyers signed a contract titled “Standard Purchase and Sale Agreement” which failed to disclose the original liens (mortgage loans) on the properties. The document also failed to disclose that Dennis was conducting a wraparound mortgage transaction, a type of owner-seller financing, and did not comply with strict regulations for such transactions set out in the Texas Property Code.
Dennis often met buyers at a title company to create an appearance of credibility. There, buyers would sign an “Installment Land Contract” and “Note,” along with other documents. The Note listed one of Dennis’s bank accounts as the payment account. Buyers paid their monthly payments faithfully, most of which Dennis kept for himself instead of applying to the mortgages.
When the original homeowners—the service members—received notices that their mortgages were in arrears, they contacted Dennis. He assured them it was an error and he would resolve it. Dennis would then remit partial payments to the mortgage companies with the effect of delaying foreclosure for several months to over a year. Ultimately, however, most of the homes were foreclosed upon, devastating the service members’ credit and leaving them with long-term financial consequences, including difficulty securing housing and vehicle loans.
Meanwhile, long after moving into what they believed were their new homes, buyers began receiving foreclosure notices and orders to vacate. Their calls to Dennis went unanswered. Left in confusion, buyers had to piece together the truth on their own, eventually contacting law enforcement. The El Paso Police Department’s Financial Crimes Unit investigated this complex scheme and presented it to our office for prosecution.
Real estate fraud
This was not the first time I had seen a real estate fraud case while assigned to the White Collar Unit. Our unit had handled two or three cases involving similar schemes before. However, none of those defendants had been quite as prolific as Dennis and, for various reasons, their cases did not result in convictions. When I received Dennis’s case and saw just how many people had been deceived and hurt, it was evident there was a strong pattern of willful deception, eradicating any possible defense that this was a civil matter or that he was simply a legitimate businessman whose business “got away from him.”
Piecing together the puzzle
Organizing the extensive records and information in this case was critical to successful prosecution. Each transaction for the acquisition and selling of 17 homes had at least two sets of victims: the service members and the buyers. Investigators in our office worked to locate each military homeowner, many of whom were deployed and therefore unavailable. Fortunately, their family members helped us establish contact or provided useful information. From these sources, we obtained mortgage company details and issued grand jury subpoenas to collect all relevant documents, including mortgage records, identities of mortgagees, amounts remitted by Dennis after each “sale,” and foreclosure documentation.
From each buyer, we obtained copies of their contracts with Dennis, some receipts for payments, and their banking information. We then issued grand jury subpoenas for their bank records to prove the amounts they paid to Dennis. Dennis’s own financial records were also subpoenaed to confirm the amounts he received from buyers.
Determining the total amount of the theft was straightforward. Because Dennis operated under a common scheme and continuing course of conduct, we concluded that we could prove his intent to deprive buyers of all amounts they paid, which was over $324,000. Any amounts Dennis did remit to the mortgage companies essentially served to further his scheme by staving off foreclosure, allowing him to continue receiving payments from buyers. To calculate the value of the theft of real property, I used the latest appraisal district valuations (which are historically below market value). They totaled over $2 million.
In December 2019, I charged Dennis with two first-degree felony counts of theft greater than $200,000. These included both monetary theft and theft involving the transfer or purported transfer of title to real property under the value ladder applicable at the time Dennis began his scheme. I chose not to add a third count of securing execution of document by deception greater than $200,000 because, while an appropriate charge for his conduct on both sides of each real estate transaction, it did not adequately convey the enormity of the damage done. I wanted a jury at trial to focus on the whole picture and any conviction in this case to be recognizable for what it was: cold, hard theft. New this year is the offense of fraudulent sale, rental, or lease of residential real property in §32.57 of the Penal Code, which can be charged and prosecuted in addition to theft and securing.
Restitution amounts were calculated separately from the total theft. Because Dennis did remit some payments to mortgage companies, he did not keep all amounts buyers paid. Restitution owed to buyers was calculated as the total amount they paid to Dennis minus the amount he forwarded to mortgage companies. While buyers lost thousands of dollars (and potential equity and interest in the homes they believed they were purchasing), they did at least obtain the benefit from housing in exchange for their money during the time they occupied the properties.
It was determined that no restitution was owed to the original homeowners because they had voluntarily relinquished any equity they may have had in their homes when they deeded it to Dennis to assume their loans. Importantly, the main damage they suffered was to their credit, a consequential harm for which restitution is not available in Texas. Similarly, mortgage companies were not owed restitution because they ultimately recovered their collateral, the homes, through foreclosure.
Working out a plea
Plea negotiations began in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown, when in-person court proceedings were indefinitely suspended. Dennis’s attorney stated that the defendant had $100,000 in restitution to pay up-front and would be able to pay the remaining restitution at a rate of $1,550 per month thereafter. In exchange, he wanted deferred adjudication.
While deferred for such a ruthless and exploitative scheme was nearly unthinkable, the prospect of securing one-third of restitution up-front was a significant benefit to the victims. I also understood that deferred preserved the full range of punishment (five to 99 years or life) if Dennis violated these terms.
After consulting with victims, who overwhelmingly prioritized restitution and a quick resolution, I agreed to the plea deal. Dennis pled guilty and paid the $100,000 restitution, which was distributed to the 19 buyers pro rata according to their individual losses. Dennis also paid his monthly restitution installments for a while, money he likely obtained from subsequent victims, as he never had legitimate employment during this time.
Another scheme
Predictably, Dennis did not change his behavior and immediately resumed fraudulent schemes involving real estate right after his plea. Starting in 2020, he began targeting a different type of property, unimproved land out in the county. Dennis accessed the county tax website and identified vacant tracts with delinquent property taxes, which indicated to him that the owners were either out of state, deceased, or otherwise inattentive.
Dennis placed “for sale” signs on these tracts, prompting inquiries from passersby. He met the interested buyers at the properties within minutes and negotiated terms. Once Dennis and a buyer had an agreement, he prepared fraudulent deeds transferring ownership of the land from the actual owners to his illegitimate company he called Legion Investments, LLC. He forged the owners’ signatures, falsified notary seals and signatures, and filed the fraudulent deeds with the county clerk’s office. Armed with these documents, Dennis appeared to be the owner of this land, holding it just long enough to complete a sale to the buyer.
Dennis then met buyers at various public locations, including Postal Annex and The UPS Store, locations that offer the services of a notary public, within a matter of days to complete the sale. Buyers either paid in full or made down payments, and Dennis executed a Warranty Deed transferring the property from Legion Investments to the buyers. Remaining payments owed by buyers were collected via apps such as Azibo and Turbo Tenant.
By 2023, Dennis’s new fraud came to light. Some buyers discovered the scam when they attempted to pay property taxes and learned from the Central Appraisal District that they were not the owners of record. Others saw new “for sale” signs posted on the properties they thought they had just purchased. When they contacted the listed real estate agents, they discovered that Dennis had never owned the land. One buyer had even started building a home on the property before discovering the fraud!
Dennis was arrested, and I quickly filed a motion to adjudicate guilt. He was held without bond until it was set at $100,000, keeping him in custody while many of his new cases trickled in. In his second scheme, 17 known properties were targeted, resulting in more than 20 victims and losses exceeding $200,000.
New charges
The cases from Dennis’s new scheme were presented piecemeal from different investigators across multiple law enforcement agencies. Rather than waiting for all cases to trickle in and aggregating based on a common scheme or continuing course of conduct, I charged Dennis with each available offense applicable to the particular facts as each case was presented, knowing that he faced a punishment of five to 99 years or life if revoked. Dennis was therefore charged in four new indictments with multiple counts, including forgery of a financial instrument with intent to harm or defraud; tampering with a government record, license, or seal with intent to harm or defraud; and theft of property. These offenses carried punishment ranges from state jail to second-degree felonies. The State’s recommendation was 25 years on the original first-degree felony revocation to run concurrent with the maximum punishment on the new charges, an admission of guilt to 10 unindicted cases (which were presented during plea negotiations) under the provisions of Texas Penal Code §12.45, and the State would decline three unindicted cases involving his wife as a co-defendant.
Dennis remained in the El Paso County Jail for over 670 days attempting to negotiate a more favorable recommendation. As the prosecutor for the State, I remained firm on my offer, convinced that a contested revocation could result in a sentence exceeding 25 years. Eventually, Dennis offered to cooperate with law enforcement by explaining how he executed his fraud in exchange for a reduced sentence of 20 years.
Plea agreement
On the record, I agreed to this counteroffer under two conditions: 1) Dennis had to provide complete information, and 2) that information must be actionable by law enforcement to prevent future scams like his. I was hopeful that Dennis would provide detailed information that law enforcement could use or disseminate to help reduce recurrent of this fraud.
Dennis accepted these terms on the record, and he and his attorney met with detectives. During that meeting, Dennis detailed how he exploited publicly available information on the county tax website to identify vulnerable target properties. He also described his technique to forge notary seals and offered recommendations for preventing similar fraud in the future.
Although Dennis was forthcoming, the information he provided was not actionable by police, as law enforcement has no authority to implement changes to systems used by the Tax Office, Notary Commission, or County Clerk’s Office. Nevertheless, because he cooperated fully, I honored nearly the entire agreement, offering him 21 years instead of 20. Dennis accepted, and the court approved the plea.
Thirty days later, our office held a press conference to inform the public about Dennis’s schemes and to educate citizens on how to recognize and avoid real estate fraud. After the press conference aired on local television newscasts, was published on news websites, and was posted on social media, eight additional victims came forward. Remarkably, they had been making monthly payments via digital apps for properties they purchased from Dennis the entire time he had been incarcerated.
The defrauded buyers in Dennis’s latest scheme face challenges in resolving title to the land they thought they had bought. In some instances, the rightful owners, or their heirs, have never come forward or cannot be located. Buyers are aware that title is likely defective and they cannot invest in improvements without risk. In resolving these cases, buyers asked whether they needed to continue making their monthly payments to Dennis and whether they truly had an ownership interest in land that had been fraudulently taken from someone else. In these instances, we have encouraged buyers to seek legal assistance from a licensed attorney and title company to resolve their property status issues.
Conclusion
Victor Bernard Dennis’s schemes demonstrate how real estate fraud can devastate both vulnerable homeowners and unsuspecting buyers. His ability to exploit public information, forge official documents, and manipulate legal processes allowed him to operate undetected for years, leaving behind a trail of financial damage. While justice was ultimately served with Dennis receiving a significant prison sentence and paying restitution, his victims will be impacted for years to come. This case is a reminder of the need for public awareness, stronger safeguards in property transactions, and awareness of this type of fraud by law enforcement and prosecutors.