by An eight-count lawsuit was filed in Saginaw County
SAGINAW COUNTY, MI. (WJRT) – A criminal investigation continues as a mid-Michigan home builder left a number of clients with unfinished homes, and liens placed on their properties.
Today we’ve learned a lawsuit has been filed against the builder and a credit union that he worked closely with during the new construction loan process.
There have been no criminal charges in the case as the Michigan State Police confirms there have been multiple complaints and it remains an open investigation.
Now on the civil side, David Dennis of Great Lakes Homes and Frankenmuth Credit Union and a credit union employee are facing a lawsuit.
“Great thing is when you have a relationship with a lender, and you know the people over there, it gives you more leverage to move things along,” is how David Dennis, owner of Great Lakes Homes explained, in part, the close working relationship with Frankenmuth Credit Union when it came to home construction projects.
The video was produced by the company a few years ago.
Also in the video, Jill Rodriguez who works for the credit union.
“Your down payment, the loan amount all get escrowed, so you can’t touch it, builder can’t touch it,” Rodriguez can be heard saying.
But somebody touched that money as a number of clients of both Great Lakes Homes and Frankenmuth Credit Union ended up with unfinished homes.
Investigators are looking at the possibility that Dennis was able to convince the credit union that work was being done on the homes, withdraw the money from their loans, but the work was never done.
Dennis, Rodriguez, Great Lakes Homes and Frankenmuth Credit Union are now facing an eight-count civil lawsuit that has been filed in Saginaw County.
Sixteen plaintiffs in all, from Saginaw, Bay, Midland and Roscommon Counties.
The allegations are that the plaintiffs are victims of fraud, and that the credit union continued to send clients to Dennis and Great Lakes Homes, even after a title company would no longer do business with Dennis because of suspected fraud.
The lawsuit also claims the credit union pressured clients to sign ‘Draw Distribution Authorization’ documents to release funds to Dennis.
It claims the plaintiffs’ home builds were either not undertaken, not completed or deficient.
The lawsuit is asking for damages of more than $25,000 for each of the eight counts.
The attorney representing the plaintiffs did not want to comment further on the lawsuit.
We could not reach David Dennis, Frankenmuth Credit Union or Jill Rodriguez for comment.
