Nov 04, 2009 (Greeley Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX News Network) --

A Weld District Court jury charged with determining whether a Greeley builder committed forgery and theft in a pattern of racketeering three years ago were left with two different impressions of the man Wednesday morning.

Strodtman, 52, is on trial for 11 counts of felony theft, 11 counts of forgery and one count of racketeering under the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act.

He's accused of creating an elaborate kickback scheme to sell houses through his company, which he shared with Dean Juhl, who also was an employee and banker with New Frontier Bank. The accusations stem from a scheme in which prosecutors say Strodtman falsified closing documents on the home sales by not disclosing thousands in kickbacks he was giving to homebuyers as incentives to buy the homes.

Defense attorney David Kaplan of Denver painted a picture of a Greeley builder who just wanted build houses and get in on a hot real estate market. Strodtman, he said, relied on others' expertise in the mortgage and closing documents, which he had little to do with other than to sell the home to a buyer.

"He didn't do it alone, he just concentrated on his part of the business," Kaplan said, "which was getting the houses built, showing them to people who were interested in purchasing them then entering into contracts ... so that person could buy the house. All the other people it takes for that sale to be completed, in that opening, it seemed like everyone else in sale (were) minimal participants."

Kaplan called the money Strodtman paid to the buyers "referral fees," which had nothing to do with the contacts or sales of the homes.

Deputy District Attorney Matthew Pring said the "kickbacks" were distributed to several players, many who were originally charged in the scheme, but whose cases were dismissed in exchange for testifying at trial against Strodtman. The kickbacks, had they been disclosed, would have been legal, Pring said. But that also would have likely kept lenders from funding the loans in the first place.

"If they don't know, they can't properly evaluate their risk," Pring said. "They'll take that incentive and look at it and figure if they want to loan the money, but they have to know. In this case, it was hidden and that's what makes it illegal. It was hidden, handshake deal, and lenders were deceived."

Pring explained slightly different kickback schemes on the sale of 11 houses, six of which were to some New York investors, relationships that were created through the uncle of Strodtman's mortgage broker, Jessica Feliciano-Brandt. Upon the completion of the home sales, Pring said, they all got together for a dinner and a baseball game, after which buyers walked away with $10,000 for each home sold.

"He did all this as part of JS Real Estate, his company, using other shams, other ways to route money around to hide them from the person they were trying to deceive," Pring said. "Without the lender, there's no money. Without money, the defendant doesn't make any. That is deception and greed, trying to sell houses at the highest rate as fast as possible."

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