On the homepage
Health care
Out There
Gift guides
Sunday's paper
Richfield title firm's owner stole fees, U.S. says
Print this story
E-mail this story
Save to del.icio.us
Share on Facebook
Share on Digg
Minnesota business by the numbers
See Minnesota's top earning companies, CEOs and non-profits
More from Business
A Richfield title company owner has been charged by federal prosecutors with misappropriating $470,000 in fees from hundreds of property transactions and failing to file accurate 2007 income tax forms, according to documents made public Wednesday.
Roseann Wagner, a former insurance agent, owned and ran Tri-Star Title Inc., a Minnesota company that acted as an agent for Stewart Title Guaranty Co., a title insurance underwriter based in Houston.
Title insurance protects a lender from losses due to title defects, liens or other encumbrances on the title. A typical home buyer would pay the title insurance premiums, included among other closing costs, with money borrowed from the lender. The lender distributes the money to a closing agent who's responsible for paying the title insurance premiums, title search and recording fees.
Wagner, for most of 2007, failed to make those payments on hundreds of real estate deals, potentially wrecking them, according to prosecutors. Wagner allegedly used the money that was supposed to go to settle the transaction for personal expenses. She allegedly wired the money from a Tri-Star account to her personal account, and didn't include the money on her tax returns. The government is seeking to recover the money.
Wagner was charged in a felony "information," a manner that generally precedes a plea agreement. Stewart Title has since paid the title insurance premiums, title search costs and recording fees in the affected deals.
Matt McKinney • 612-673-7329
Recent Business stories
Blog: Patent Pending
Lights out at U energy conference. Irony police notified.
Just as Lawrence Kazmerski, a top official at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was about to give the keynote address at the University of Minnesota's annual E3 conference at the RiverCentre in St. Paul, the lights went out, bathing the audience in darkness and a deep sense of irony.