Former Rocker Sentenced to Seven Years in Prison for Defrauding Thousands in Nationwide Real Estate

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdil/pr/former-rocker-sentenced-seven-years-prison-defrauding-thousands-nationwide-real-estate

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Southern District of Illinois

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, March 7, 2019

Former Rocker Sentenced to Seven Years in Prison for Defrauding Thousands in Nationwide Real Estate Scam

Benton, IL – The former bass guitar player for the rock band, The Ataris, is bound for federal prison. Michael S. Davenport, 50, of Santa Barbara, California, was sentenced on Wednesday to serve 84 months behind bars for defrauding thousands of would-be renters and home-buyers throughout the United States from 2009 to 2016. Davenport pled guilty last September to a one-count federal indictment charging him with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.

Davenport’s Santa Barbara-based business changed names several times but was known variously as MDSQ Productions LLC, Housing Standard LLC, Anchor House Financial, American Standard, American Standard Online, and Your American Standard. Court documents simply refer to the business as "American Standard."

As part of his guilty plea, Davenport admitted that American Standard posted ads on Craigslist listing certain houses for sale or rent at very favorable prices, when, in fact, the houses described in the ads didn’t exist. Consumers who responded to the ads were told they would have to purchase American Standard’s list of houses before they could see any additional information. Consumers were also told that the houses on American Standard’s list were in "pre-foreclosure," that they could purchase the properties by simply taking over the homeowners’ mortgage payments, and that the deeds to the homes would then be transferred into the customers’ names. The $199 fee that American Standard charged to access the list was purportedly to cover the cost of title searches and deed transfers. No matter what area of the country the consumer lived in, American Standard salespersons told them that the list contained numerous pre-foreclosure properties available in their area.

After consumers paid the $199 fee, they learned that the houses on American Standard’s list were not actually available for purchase. A substantial number of the addresses contained on the list were fictional, or there were simply no houses at those locations. In numerous other instances, the houses were not in pre-foreclosure or any financial distress and were not available to be purchased at below-market prices. If an American Standard customer asked for more information about a specific house advertised on Craigslist, the company’s customer service department always told them that the house was no longer available.

Davenport’s conspiracy and scheme to defraud operated from approximately January 2009 through at least October 5, 2016, over which time American Standard defrauded more than 130,000 people to the tune of more than $25 million. The victims were located in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Over 100 victims of the scam were located within the Southern District of Illinois, spread across 22 counties, with multiple victims in both St. Clair and Madison counties. American Standard’s list included 534 houses located in Southern Illinois.
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