‘How could this have happened?’: Scammer pretends to be Lincoln man, sells his land

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – A sophisticated scammer stole the identity of a Lincoln man and sold his land to a nonprofit.

The scheme went undiscovered for several months before it unraveled.

In September, NeighborWorks Lincoln bought an empty lot at 47th Street and Lowell Avenue.

The nonprofit planned to turn it into affordable housing.

Jim Gustafson owns the empty lot and the buildings on either side.

He said the first red flag was in January, when the property tax statement was missing for the land in the middle.

Gustafson didn’t think much of it, but a couple months later, his friend enlightened him

‘He says, ‘Jim, when did you sell that center lot?’ I said, ‘What?'” Gustafson explained.

His friend, who lives nearby, told him that the Lancaster County assessor’s website said the land was sold for $59,000.

“I said, ‘Oh, really? That’s the first I heard of it,'” Gustafson said.

He went to NeighborWorks to ask what was going on.

Charlie Wesche, the CEO of the nonprofit, said it was a huge surprise.

“My first thought was, ‘How in the world?'” he said. “Just kind of shock. How could this have happened?”

Then things started to click into place.

“Come to find out, the property had been fraudulently listed for sale by somebody that didn’t have the right to list the property for sale,” Wesche said. “And this was all done without the actual owner knowing what happened.”

Gustafson contacted the title company.

“They started digging into it, and they said, ‘Well, don’t you live in Texas?’ I said, ‘No, I’ve lived in Lincoln all my life,'” he laughed. “Then, they started to take it pretty serious and they said, ‘Uh oh, we’ve got a problem.'”

A scammer managed to fool several people, including real estate agents, title companies and the Lancaster County Assessor’s Office.

The culprit listed the lot for sale and provided convincing documents.

Gustafson said they had forged his signature multiple times.

He filed a police report.

“The person that facilitated all of this, we don’t know who that is,” Wesche said. “I don’t know what the status of that investigation is. But they did have documents that were created that were notarized, so there was some sophistication behind the entire process.”

It was easily sorted out.

NeighborWorks gave the property back to Gustafson, and the title company reimbursed the nonprofit.

“There was some time where we felt kind of silly,” Wesche said. “And did we do something wrong? But I think the more we’ve thought about it, we really didn’t. I haven’t taken it personally.”

Gustafson agreed that this would have been nearly impossible to stop ahead of time.

“I don’t know how I would have even prevented it,” he said. “Unless you want to get on there every week and see what the status of your property is, I don’t know what else you would do.”