2 Pittsburgh men charged in scheme that stole 43 property deeds

Two men are facing a total of over 100 felony charges after investigators said they illegally transferred the deeds of dozens of properties in Allegheny County without the owners knowing. 

The Allegheny County District Attorney's Office said 45-year-old William Schneider used counterfeit notary stamps bought on Amazon to submit fraudulent deed transfers for 43 separate properties. Investigators said 57-year-old William Petruskie helped by creating an LLC to be listed on 10 of the forged property deeds. 

The district attorney's office said Schneider's fake deed transfer submissions shared several things in common. For one, investigators said all of them were sent in large manila envelopes without return addresses. All the deeds were bought for $1,000 and used legitimate notaries with altered seals. And all of them were submitted with Western Union money orders from the same location, which investigators said they traced to Schneider. 

When investigators talked to Schneider, they said he initially denied any knowledge of the scheme and said he was a victim of identity theft and credit card theft. But, according to the criminal complaint, he eventually confessed, saying that he filed the fake deeds so he could take over the properties, renovate them and "make his community better." 

Schneider is facing 86 felony counts of forgery, 35 felony counts of theft and eight felony counts of criminal attempt and criminal conspiracy. Petruskie is charged with 10 felony counts of theft and criminal conspiracy. 

Real estate agent raises alarm about deed fraud

Real estate agent Kelsey Green talked to KDKA in June after she said she'd found 35 cases of deed fraud. She said she started looking into it when a property owner called her office to refinance, only to learn they no longer owned the property. County records showed they signed their deed over to someone else — except they hadn't.

Green explained that the reason someone would steal deeds is so they can either refinance or sell the homes and then take the money and run. She said many of the homes impacted weren't currently inhabited. 

How to protect yourself from deed fraud 

TitleSafe founder Matt Lutz told KDKA that most people don't know about home deed fraud until it's too late. However, there are some steps you can take to remain vigilant. 

Check your home on the county recorder's website. An easy way is to enter your parcel code without hyphens into the recorder's page, and your deeds should show up. You can also sign up for alerts on your property, so if there is anything, you get alerted to catch anything out of the norm. 

If you do fall victim to deed fraud, you can still recover, but it will likely cost thousands of dollars in court orders.