Home Title Fraud

Home title fraud is real, and there are ways to protect your property.  Michael Allen Harrison's 10 Grands performances will help raise funds for Play It Forward.  A report examines fentanyl deaths in Multnomah County and shows ways to handle the crisis.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Welcome to Local Voices. I'm bradFord. This week how to Protect yourself
from Home title fraud. Michael AllenHarrison will have details on his ten Grands
concerts coming up at the end ofthe month and the impact of the Fatanyl
crisis on Wultna mccounty. I'm eLove and ninety Kate Ex's Scale Cunningham.
Today I'm taking a look at thegrowing crime of home title fraud. We're

(00:26):
used to thieves stealing cash, electronics, cars, and catalytic converters from cars,
but now crooks are getting boulder quietlystealing homes out from under unsuspecting owners.
Earlier this year, eighty three yearold Bob Henny nearly lost his childhood
home in Portland's Saint John's neighborhood toa fraud ster. Henny spends a lot
of his time in southern California,and if not for three long time neighbors

(00:47):
who keep watch, the thief mighthave gotten away with it. Back in
February, his elderly neighbor Janet,noticed a man in a locksmith truck and
another in a private vehicle pull upand go to the front door of Henny's
home, and so she called theone on the other side of my house,
Janine, and said, hey,there's two guys going up there messing
with Ron's front door. Why don'tyou ask him what's going on. So
she went out and she walked upto the fence and she asked him,

(01:11):
what are you doing over there?And this one guy said, well,
I just bought this house and thekey that they gave me doesn't fit,
so I'm having the blocksmith open thedoor. And she said, oh my,
that's not that can't be because Ronwould have told us if he was
selling the house. He didn't sellthe house. No, and she said,

(01:33):
I think I'm going to call thepolice. And with that, the
guy that was in a small carspun around whatever, got in his car
and left. Well, the policearrived just a few minutes later, and
the locksmith was still there, sothey interviewed him and then I guess he
left, but they took some justa cursory report. And then after they

(01:57):
called me and told me what's goingon, I thought, well, maybe
somebody just trying to break into myhouse, until the neighbors discovered another disturbing
sign. The same neighbor that wasthat had talked to him. Called the
neighbor behind me and said, hey, uh, Carol, Now she has
a key from my back door.Carol does, She says, I think

(02:19):
some of my mail might have beendelivered to Ron's house. Can you go
in and check? She said,My my so security check is is missing.
And so Carol came over and wentin the house and took the mail
and went through it, and loand behold that her check was there.

(02:39):
But so was a bunch of mailfrom a mortgage company offering to sell mortgage
insurance to this gentleman or this personcalled so Bestra Garcia. My friend Carol
called me. She says, doyou know a guy named Silvestra Garcia.
I said, heck no, I'venever heard of him before. And why

(03:00):
because there's all kinds of mail comingto your house saying it's his house.
And at that point I got reallyupset. Henny frantically called the city of
Portland and Moltnoma County. The newswasn't good, and she said, well,
your name is not on the titleto your home. It's a name
Silvester Garcia. Garcia registered a deedwith the county on January twenty ninth,

(03:22):
showing he bought Henny's house for twohundred and thirty six thousand dollars, less
than half its market value, butHenny hadn't sold his home. He called
his daughter, Sarah Henny. Itwas a mad dash to even figure out
what this meant. I mean,I had never heard of title hod so
I did an old fashioned Google totry to figure it out. A good
friend of mine works for a titlecompany in Minnesota. And this is totally

(03:44):
random, but you know, I'ma colleague of her sisters, and her
sister called her and said, hey, this is going on. Immediately that
person could pull up some information andmake sense of it for my dad and
I, And so that kind ofgot us started on a path to getting
all the information together, understanding whatwas going on, and then eventually hiring

(04:05):
our attorney to help get the deedput back into my father's name. Henny's
attorney, former state Representative Julie Parrish, got a copy of the deed filed
by Sylvester Garcia. They forged myclient signature, They forged the notary signature.
Tim Mercer, a manager of theMuliman County Office of Assessment and Taxation,
which records deeds says Henny is thevictim of a new and fast growing

(04:27):
scam he had never seen until lastyear. Over the last nine months or
so, we've seen five cases thatwe know about so far. Henny was
advised his name could be restored onthe county paperwork, but he would have
to go to court to legally restorehis name on the deed. Until then,
the thief could do anything with theproperty, occupy or sell the property.
But other cases we've seen, themotive is that they're going to kind

(04:50):
of use that deed as collateral forsome type of loan. So they're simply
trying to get this fraudulent deed recordand then go pull a loan against that
property. The race was on tostop that from happening. Henny's attorney,
Julie Parish, filed notice of aclouded title to stop any potential sale to

(05:10):
a third party, along with thecase to have the court declare Sylvester Garcia's
deed to be invalid and void.It's a complicated, time consuming and expensive
process you have to pay to gosave their own property is a little bit
tragic. This then happened to anyproperty unoccupied, occupied with or without a
mortgage. Even Elvis Presley's beloved Gracelandwas the target of a recent fraudulent auction

(05:35):
attempt. How does this happen?It's stunningly easy. We won't go into
specifics for obvious reasons, but TimMercer at the Moltnoma County Assessor's Office says
anyone with the computer can go online, pull deeds and forge signatures with little
to stop them. He and JulieParish agree the system is ripe for fraud,
lacking adequate county systems to verify signaturesand state statutes to protect personal information

(06:00):
need some other layer protection. Giventhe spike in home title fraud cases in
Oregon, Multima County officials now havea process in place to notify and cooperate
with law enforcement when they become awareof fraud issues. Parish is pushing the
state legislature to enact a law requiringthat signatures be hidden on property records accessible
to the public, and she wantsthe Secretary of State to share with county
clerks voter ID software and processes tohelp detect deed fraud. Parish is also

(06:25):
floating the idea of pin numbers forproperty deeds, much like the ones on
debit cards in order to alter informationon the document. The challenge is always
trying to stay one step ahead ofthe fraudsters in today's rapidly evolving world,
and title companies are tightening their processes. Sarah Frano with First American Title says
videos now part of their transactions.We use remote online notorizations that does have

(06:50):
the video component to it, sowe get people in front of a camera
doing that signing before a notary.It's part of First a Mayor's holistic approach
to fraud prevention. We like toblend technology, employee training and educating customers
on the indications of potential fraud duringreal estate transactions. And Fronto offers these

(07:11):
suggestions to help you stay ahead offraudsters. If you are buying a property,
go through a title company like FirstAmerican. When you are purchasing a
home, make sure you select atitle insurance policy with fraud coverage and specifically
ask for the First American EGLE policyor similar policy to purchase because it covers
fraudulent transfers after the policy date,which can help you cover costs clearing the

(07:38):
title to the property and undoing afraudulent conveyance and once you on the home.
Frono says there are other ways toprotect that property without expensive third party
monitoring. Set up a Google alertwith your property address. If the fraudster
lists the property for sale, analert might help stop a sale before it
even happens. Two, you canmonitor your credit report for any change to

(08:00):
your credit resulting from new loans beingencumbering on your property. And Thirdly,
Tim Mercer at Muldoma County's Office ofAssessment and Taxation says you can monitor legal
activity on your own property. Mostevery assessor in the state has a website
where you can go look at propertyownership. But if the unthinkable happens,
the best advice is to contact lawenforcement and your attorney. I'm Gail Cunningham,

(08:24):
News Radio eleven ninety k EX.Michael Allen Harrison is moving his ten
Grands performances to a new venue thisyear. Ten Grant's is a performance unlike
anything you may have seen before.Michael Allen Harrison joins us on Local Voices.
Michael tell us about the ten Grandsperformances. Ten Grands is ten beautiful,
black, shiny grand pianos on stageat the same time with ten pianists

(08:50):
playing each of them, and soall the artists we take turns, you
know, playing a solo. Butthen there's like four or five numbers where
we all play together. So arrangeyou know, some dynamic songs that are
arranged for ten pianos, and thesound is unbelievable. I mean, you

(09:11):
just feel like you're inside the piano, like you're just completely surrounded by this
big, beautiful wall of sound ofthese beautiful sounding instruments. And so,
but it's not just a complete pianoshow because you know, the piano also
accompanies, you know, singers andother instruments, and so we incorporate singers

(09:35):
in some of the arrangements. We'llhave some cello and violin. Also,
two of the grand pianos have whatwe call MIDI capability m id I or
let's just say if you don't knowwhat that is, we'll say computer compatibility,
where we're able to think up toa computer with incredible orchestral librar.

(10:00):
I mean, these are samples ofreal instruments. And so if I want
a flute in the arrangement, oneof those you know, uh, computer
type pianos can play a flute partfor me, you know, or you
know, or a full string ensembleor if we want French horn or tuba.

(10:20):
But then but we also like tomix in you know, a real
live instruments. We don't want itto sound a synthetic. We still want
it to sound very authentic. Soit's it's really I kind of I think
of the show as a as apiano orchestra that presents all the different things
that the piano is involved in andand and and all the different genres because

(10:45):
you know, the piano plays bluesand ragtime and jazz and classical and new
age and pop. You know,I mean, the piano is the workhorse
of music, and and so tenGrant is really a showcase, you know,
of what the piano can do,and what these wonderful young artists that

(11:05):
I have in the show this year, you know, have going and and
you're one of the things I'm reallyexcited this year about is not only do
I have some great new young artistswho are really find piano players, but
four of them are also really goodcomposers. So we're gonna hear some new

(11:26):
music from some of these kids.And so the age range is of my
new young artists are fifteen to thirtyfive, and we you know, I've
done the show for over twenty threeyears now. I think this is our
twenty four season, and you know, and we've had you know, some
you know, legendary professionals, youknow, like Tom Grant and John Nilsen

(11:50):
and Darryl Grant and others, andthey've been in our show, you know
for many years. And as muchas I love them and I thank them
so much for being in our show, you know, it's I just felt
like it was it's time. It'stime to pass on the torch and support,
you know, the young artists thatare coming up, give them exposure,
you know, get people, youknow, hearing their name because they're

(12:13):
just as good as we are.And and they, you know, they
need an opportunity to be seen andheard and and so that's that's why I
call it, you know, tenGrands a new era, you know,
and we're also we're in a newvenue. Yeah, we've been at the
Schnitzer Hall these years, and butwhen they opened up the new Patricia Research

(12:37):
Performing a Center for the arts,and and I've done two shows that are
already just on my own. HI was so impressed with the acoustics.
I was so impressed with the stage. The stage is is is about the
same size as the Schnitzer stage,but the hall only holds five hundred people.
So imagine a stage that's like thebig haul the Schnister, you know,

(13:01):
or the Keller, but there's onlyfive hundred and fifty seats. Wow,
So there's there isn't a bad seatin the house. So it's going
to be like sitting in dress circle, you know, and with all those
ten pianos and the other instruments ofthe singers, You're just going to be
surrounded by that sound like you've neverheard before. That's great and so so

(13:22):
I just have so much new excitementaround it. It's given me, you
know, a lot of new energyworking with a new young artists and and
you know, because you know,I think the last four or five years,
I mean, the shows have beengreat, but I've been kind of
feeling like for me artistically, I'vebeen kind of like on autopilot, you
know what I mean, you know, and so and you know, I

(13:46):
want to be inspired. I wantto, you know, I want to
I want to get excited about whatI'm doing. And this really is it
is this new direction has done theshow. Sure time to mix it up
a little bit. You mentioned theyoung performers. One of them's fifteen.
Tell us about some young performers.Well, the youngest pianist, her name
is Esther Harrison. She happens tobe my daughter. But she's been in

(14:11):
the show before, and she's beenin my Christmas shows that you know,
she's she's she's even though she's oneof the young artists, she's somewhat a
vetterans because she's grown up. Youknow, she's grown up in an entertainment
family. The biggest surprise about heris that the last couple of years she
started sharing music that she's been writing. She's been kind of keeping it to

(14:33):
herself, kind of shy about it, and then she started sharing some of
her new music, and she wrotethis piece that just knock you out.
It so beautiful and it has sucha strong melody. You could hear it
in a in a movie as amovie theme. You know that piano piece
that was in La La Land that'sso big, right, you know,

(14:54):
I mean it's it's not the sametype of piece, but it has that
same kind of impact when you hearit. Wow. You know, it's
that kind of song where like,you know, teenagers you know, all
around the world and want to learnthat song because they heard it in a
movie. Yeah, yeah, thatkind of thing. Well, tell us
about the the eight hands on twopianos. What's that? Well, that's

(15:15):
a tradition. So you know,you have two people on each piano,
so you got the two big nightbook pianos in the middle, and so
you have two people on one pianoand two people on the other. So
basically eight hands and so it's anarrangement for eight hands to do something you
know, fun and crazy. Andwhat makes it extra exciting this year is

(15:39):
that one of the eight hands artists, his name is Charlie Martin, and
I think Charlie is either seventeen oreighteen. He's also a composer, so
he's sculpted an arrangement of one ofhis original songs to do with eight hands.
So how do they do that withoutgetting their fingers mixed up? Well,

(16:00):
you know, I mean, ifyou know much about music, you
know you have the trouble cleft,which is kind of from middle c up
and the bass clefs from kind ofthink of it as dividing the piano up.
So you just divide the piano up, and so instead of one hand
playing up in the upper register,you got two of them playing up there.
Wow, you know, and twoof them you know, playing down
the lower register, so you canget deeper base notes going. And then

(16:25):
also, you know, you caninstead of just playing a melody, you
know, just with one hand,you can double it up and play octaves.
Rather than playing an octave with onehand, which isn't as smooth as
playing active melodies with two hands together. It's you know, smooth and connected.
It just creates a much more dynamicpalette, you know, in which

(16:51):
to create and to perform. Soten grands is a benefit for Play It
Forward. It's a nonprofit that youcreated along with your wife, Maryett in
twenty seventeen us how it helps kidswell. Play It Forward is a really
unique program because it also involves thecommunity in a big way. And this
is the reason we call it PlayIt Forward is because we take in gently

(17:14):
used instruments from the community. Couldbe a violin or an obo, but
we've taken in lots of pianos.Most people associate the piano with me,
and so these instruments come out ofpeople's living living rooms, and we really
stress, you know, gently used, you know that they've been really well
maintained, and so many of themcome to it like they just came off

(17:37):
the showroom floor. And because wewant to pass it on or play it
forward, you know, to achild and a family who otherwise wouldn't be
able to afford it. And sonot only do we give instruments, but
we also we give scholarships to havefree lessons, and so we have after

(17:59):
school lesson for we have individual lessonscholarships. And also we are in one
of the Portland public schools now we'reat Martin Luther King Elementary and we're teaching
two hundred students over there every week. Wow, that's great. Tell us
about the ten Grands concerts? Howdo we when are they and how do

(18:21):
we buy tickets? Three days Junetwenty eighth, twenty ninth, and thirtieth.
So Friday night at twenty eighth atseven thirty, Saturday and Sunday both
shows are at well. On Saturdayis two pm and seven thirty and then
the Sunday show on the thirtieth istwo pm and six pm. Really easy
to find tickets, you can eithergo to Michael Allanharrison dot com or you

(18:44):
can go to ten Grands dot com, or you can go to the Research
Center for the Arts ticket page.You could also find it at Play It
Forward PIF music dot org, oryou can just google it ten Grands Michael
Allan Harrison'll pop up. It does. Yes, that's how we got it.
Great, Michael, anything else you'dlike to add? Anybody who comes

(19:06):
to this show is just in forlots of surprises and just a huge treat.
And you know, this has beena tradition for many years, and
I wanted to continue to be atradition. You know, I'm going to
turn sixty six this year's and Idefinitely have less birthdays and in front of
me that I have behind me,and so you know, I want to

(19:26):
pass the torch on. So youknow, so when someday when I crossed
over to that mysterious place that weall go to, yes, you know,
I'd love it for it to keepgoing and these young leagues, you
know, carry on the torch andkeep Play It Forward going and support youth
and education. And so yeah,that's what's all about. That's Michael Allen

(19:51):
Harrison with details and his ten grandperformances coming up June twenty eighth through June
thirtieth at the Patricia Research Center forthe Yards, a benefit for Play It
Forward. Volo MC County Health issueda report on fentanyl deaths earlier this year.
It helps to show who's affected bythe crisis and what's being done about
it. Doctor Emily Mositas is anepidemiologist with multnom mccounty. The report describes

(20:15):
eight hundred and sixty eight people whodied of fentanyl overdose in Moltnoma County since
twenty eighteen. We see a dramaticrise over time that the data went from
about two deaths per month in twentyeighteen to the partial data in twenty twenty
three shows us about thirty six deathsper month, more than one per day.

(20:40):
Maultnam County does not, however,have the highest rates of overdose in
the country. The rise has beenvery sharp and we did surpass King County
in our overdose rates and now we'resimilar to San Francisco. When we look
at the geographic data, we seea centralization of hotspots for overdose that are
downtown. Is part of the rationalefor the ninety day fentanyl emergency response.

(21:04):
We also see in these data thatthirty four to forty four year olds have
emerged as the highest risk age group. This was a recent emergence in the
past couple of years. There isa gap between males and females in these
data, and the rates have beenhigher for males consistently over time, but

(21:25):
that gap has widened as the ratesincreased more quickly for males. Although the
highest number of fentanyl related deaths inthese data was in white residents, the
rates were highest in the American IndianAlasca Native community and the black community.
And when we look at the changebetween twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two,

(21:45):
this can help us understand what groupsmight be moving towards increasing inequity and
risk. And we can see thatalthough people who were identified US whose Hispanic
had lower lower rates in general,their rise, the proportional rise was high
was substantial. Overall these data,all this demographic information, all these turns

(22:08):
over time. This tells us whichgroups had some of the highest risks for
fintannel related overdoses, and we canuse these data to tailor our efforts at
the Health Department and to support communityefforts to help reach people who need it
most. So I'm going to handit over to doctor Bruno to talk a
little bit more about those efforts.Doctor Richard Bruno is the MULTA McCatty health

(22:30):
Officer. They're more than just numbers. They're our friends, our family members,
our neighbors, congregation and community members, and the statistics that we're presenting
in their support are really human beingswith the tears wiped away, as Paul
Bergier once said, So we wantto be very conscious about that and very
respectful about the folks that have lost. I want to also mention that we're

(22:51):
continuing many of the programs and pilotsand initiatives at the ninety day Fennal Emergency
Raised, especially in supporting our culturallyspecific organizations in the area who are caring
for people who've been disproportionate impacted bythis crisis to keep doing the work that
they're doing. We're also focused onour youth related communications campaign, trying to
ensure that we are preventing youth fromgetting involved in fentanal use and overdose as

(23:18):
well. Rachel Banks is the directorof the Molno Macutty Health Department. The
data in this report represents communities andparticularly when we see inequities in community,
to acknowledge that that is a disproportionateburden that communities are bearing, that our
communities of color are bearing, andtalk about some of the ways that we've

(23:42):
invested in those communities and are supportingthem. And also that taking an equity
lens and using an equity approach necessitatesthat we acknowledge the impact of racism and
colonialism and just those exacerbating burdens thatcommunities are facing. With this the overdose

(24:07):
mortalities being an additional piece there.So in the Health Department, we support
overdose prevention efforts in a range ofways, which really include preventing initiation,
particularly by youth and other people,includes harm reduction as well as providing treatment
services, ensuring that there are treatmentservices, and ultimately supporting recovery. And

(24:33):
we do that for every single Ourjob is to make those those available for
anyone who needs them in the county. But more specifically, data like this
help us to tailor those interventions,and so we have a variety of efforts
that are working with community health workers, for example, in the Native and
Indigenous community, Black communities, ourLATINX communities, working with community health workers

(25:00):
and treatment providers to raise awareness andto ensure that we're supporting the interventions that
are needed. As doctor Bruno mentioned, part of that is communications campaigns as
well as specific podcasts and trainings thatare really tailored for those community members.

(25:22):
We have a range of different groupsthat we work on. I mentioned a
few of them, as well asour youth and working with in school settings,
with educators and with youth themselves toidentify topics of interest, including fentanyl
awareness and including the distribution of thelock Stone Boula. Mccunty Health Director Rachel

(25:47):
Bank says there are specific programs aimedat the bipod community support. A group
called the Future Generations Collaborative that workswith the American Indian Alaska Native population.
They are putting on and hosts stayingtraining specific to that community. That's an
example. We work in a programcalled Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health

(26:08):
so REACH, which focuses on theBlack African African immigrant community. They are
working. They're doing a number ofthings. One of them is working with
youth to put on podcasts that arespecific and supporting youth advisory councils, student
health councils, those sorts of things. They're also partnering with the organ Health
Authority later this month to host awarenessand listening sessions to identify what specific messages

(26:36):
are needed and what specific interventions areneeded. We also have been supporting a
group, for example, of Latinoand Latina Latine LATINX serving providers, treatment
providers and providing information and support toreally tailor those messages based on the specific

(26:59):
either drug use and overdose information thatwe're seeing. One other example, we
have a path program out of ourBehavioral Health division that has culturally specific services
as well meant to connect people whoare using to treatment pathways. So those
are a number of examples I canshare. Rachel Banks explains what they help

(27:21):
the community gets out of the report. We want to validate the community's experience,
so whereby communities are feeling this,these sort of data reports validate that
experience can be used as a callto action to support investments in their communities.
Those are a couple of the waysand to generate conversations about prevention and

(27:41):
some of the root causes that toaddress as well as increase awareness of the
services that we have available. Thisis doctor Emily most Sitas. Yeah,
I would echo that, Thank you, Director Banks. I would echo that
and say that this is this kindof quantified presentation of information is a compliment

(28:03):
to the experience that communities are feeling, and it allows us also to provide
transparency for the information that we have, so that the community has the same
information that we have and they canpresent that quantified side. Doctor Richard Bruno
explains how different agencies are working together. Yeah, so I would. I
would say one of the most positiveoutcomes from the entire NINETI Devental Emergency Declaration

(28:29):
was a streamlining of many of theprocesses and breaking down barriers between different government
agencies. You know, for example, for the first time, we've been
sharing a lot of this data witheach other. So for example, on
the public dashboard that we have availablenow, we have firefighter data, so
oftentimes their first responders, they're providingresuscitations and reversing overdoses in the field,

(28:52):
and so we're being able to bringtheir data stream into with nine on one
data, hospital data, ambulance data, and a medical og anders data into
a single dashboard, so you cankind of see all that together, so
that's a great example of streamlining theseefforts. Also part of the process was
daily calls between the tragy of governmentalagencies on the state, city, and

(29:14):
county levels, and those daily meetingswill now continue in a weekly fashion,
so we'll continue to work on coordinatingour processes, being in close communication with
our fellow government agents, and makingsure that the projects, initiatives, and
programs that were brought to life orcontinued or supported through this ninety day emergency

(29:37):
will now continue post ninety You canread the report and learn more about preventing
fatanyl deaths on the Moltover County HealthDepartment's website. Thanks for listening to Local
Voices, I'm brad forward. Youcan hear past episodes on the iHeartRadio app
under the podcast tab. Local Voicesis a public affairs presentation from iHeart Radio.