Candace Bey was unemployed, pregnant and sometimes living out of a van with her six children when she bought a house last year.

After she put her signature on the settlement papers for the McKees Rocks home, she says, the man who arranged the deal mentioned a problem.

Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette The kitchen ceiling in the home Candace Bey purchased has been destroyed by leaking fixtures in the second-floor bathroom overhead. Click photo for larger image. Listen In More about Candace Bey's experience trying to buy a home. Previous articles The impossible loan: The murky path to a couple's dream home, 7/29/07 Confusion reigns in murky house sale, 7/31/07 Easy Realty deals netted millions, 8/5/07

"After we signed everything he said, 'Oh, by the way, your house was broken into,' " Ms. Bey said. "He said, 'Good luck getting the utilities on.' "

James C. Platts, a former home builder, is a convicted con-artist who was on probation at the time of the sale and months away from a tax evasion indictment. His real estate license had been revoked and even though he helped make a second mortgage happen -- with himself as the ultimate beneficiary -- he had no license to deal in loans.

Mr. Platts had left the home-building business after a guilty plea in Allegheny County court to 12 counts of theft, and he started arranging unorthodox real estate deals with his new company, Easy Realty Solutions. He has brokered millions in home sales and second mortgages in the subprime lending market, leaving behind customers who say they were tricked in ways large and small by his business tactics.

Ms. Bey, who has spent portions of her life in court for offenses ranging from a drug bust last year to a homicide when she was 15, said she was desperate to get into a home so Allegheny County authorities wouldn't take her children. She says she signed whatever papers were put in front of her, including a mortgage application listing a nonexistent job.

The Chartiers Avenue building is a former doctor's office and apartment. It has two of everything, and few of them work.

There are two water heaters -- one with a red tag declaring it unsafe, the other with a steady, hissing leak that empties day and night into a floor drain. It has two furnaces -- again, one with a red tag, the other hooked to a thermostat that stubbornly refuses to change temperatures. One of the two kitchens is downstairs. The stove caught fire. The other is on the second floor and was supposed to be the bedroom for Ms. Bey's daughter, Shaquallah. She says Mr. Platts promised to pull everything out and fix it up, promises as unkept as the foot-high lawn, the broken doors, the holes in the walls, and the $58,000 in subprime mortgages she can't afford to pay.

After hearing of the break-in, Ms. Bey says she and Emmett Miles, a man introduced to her as Mr. Platts' partner, rushed to the house. Copper pipes were missing, as was a stained glass window in the living room. None of the repairs she said Mr. Platts promised had been done.

"It's probably one of the worst rent-to-owns I've seen. I've seen others, but that's the worst one." said Randi Lowe, a caseworker with the anti-predatory lending project at the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group. "He had to have known if he said 'Good luck with the utilities.' He knew when he sold it to her what it was. He knew that it was way substandard."

Compounding Ms. Bey's problems is the fact that the multiple utility services disqualify her for state and county energy assistance programs that could lower a heating bill she fears will top the $600 mark this winter.

The sale to Ms. Bey follows a pattern that emerged as the Post-Gazette probed James C. Platts and his business practices. He used S&P Mortgage Services to find a loan, employed Butler County lawyer Bernard Flugher as closing agent and processed the title to the property through Stewart Abstract, a company run by Mr. Flugher's wife.

As ever, there is the second mortgage made out to the seller, in this case Mary A. Valles, of McKees Rocks. The second mortgage was quickly signed over to Mr. Platts and his company.

The new twist was a second player involved in the sale. Mr. Miles, an East End real estate dealer, operates a different firm with a similar name: Easy Realty Solutions East, as well as a handful of other companies.

Mr. Miles has a police record in Allegheny County that includes bad check writing, something both he and his lawyer attribute to his attempts to pay bills on an undercapitalized business.

Ms. Bey said she last held a job in 2003, and signed whatever papers were placed in front of her because she was fearful that without a home she would have her six children taken from her.

"We were homeless and I thought this was a blessing," she said. "I didn't want to lose this and be back in the van with my children."

The loan application statement was, as in the case of many Platts-related transactions, processed through S&P Mortgage, a Franklin Park company that has previously filed application forms that overstated household income. In the case of Ms. Bey, the statement lists a nonexistent job.

	Bob Donaldson photos
	The home Candace Bey bought from Easy Realty Solutions is filled with a host of problems such as red-tagged gas water heater and furnace, plumbing leaks and other issues. The water heater on the left, the furnace, and furnace flue are red-tagged; the water heater on the right leaks when the water to the house is turned on. Click photo for larger image.
	Ms. Bey's husband, DeAndre, stands at the living room window of the McKees Rocks home she purchased. The window had a stained glass panel at top when they looked at the home; after the closing it was gone. Click photo for larger image.
	The second-floor bathroom is deteriorated and the fixtures leak, causing damage to the kitchen ceiling below. Click photo for larger image.

She and her children subsist on a combination of Ms. Bey's disability income and welfare payments to the children. She worked for a construction firm several years ago before she became disabled with a broken neck.

The form says Ms. Bey was employed in a management job at Corinthian Homes of 8003 Bennett St., in Homewood.

The address turns out to be an abandoned gas station registered in the name of Zechariah Property Holdings, which lists an address that is Mr. Miles' home, which is owned by something called Miles Property Holdings. The phone number for Corinthian Homes is Mr. Miles' cell phone.

Mr. Miles said he was unaware that Ms. Bey had been listed as an employee of his company and had been brought into the deal by Mr. Platts but did not act as an agent in the sale.

While Ms. Bey says she was unaware of the line on the application listing her as an employee of Corinthian, Deean Haggerty, the S&P manager who processed the loan, says he called Ms. Bey to verify the information on her form.

According to both Ms. Bey and her daughter, Shaquallah, they received a telephone call early in the loan process. They are no longer sure which of the men involved in the loan application placed the call. The man, Shaquallah said, asked if Ms. Bey had a relative with a business who might be willing to list her as an employee. Ms. Bey said no one in her family had a business and that she had no job.

Mr. Haggerty, who relies on information provided by sales agents, said he became suspicious and went so far as to locate the tax identification number for Corinthian.

"I'd just never heard of the company and I couldn't find it online," he said.

David Nearhoof, an officer with S&P and Mr. Haggerty's boss, said the staff telephoned the number at Corinthian Homes. He said they were unaware that Corinthian was owned by Mr. Miles. They also believed Mr. Platts was a real estate agent.

So careful was S&P, Mr. Nearhoof said, that they also placed a call to verify Ms. Bey's rental history. For that, he said, they phoned Zechariah Property, and, he said, spoke with an office manager who identified himself as Patrick Allen.

According to Mr. Nearhoof, Mr. Allen reported that Ms. Bey had been a long-term renter and had not been late on any payments.

Once again, and apparently without knowing it, S&P had phoned a firm owned by Mr. Miles. Ms. Bey said she did not rent a home from Mr. Miles and the return address listed on her application was the home of a cousin who sometimes allowed the Beys to stay with them and to use the location to receive mail as the family moved from lodging to lodging.

As for Patrick Allen, Mr. Miles, who acknowledges owning Zechariah Properties, said he had no idea of the rental listing in Ms. Bey's name nor the mysterious person S&P phoned to verify it.

"We don't have a Patrick Allen," Mr. Miles said.

The Platts-Miles relationship soured almost immediately after the closing on 1135 Chartiers, Ms. Bey said. Mr. Miles joined her at the house after the closing. When the utilities were turned on -- they had been shut off at the time she was shown the home -- water sprayed from leaky pipes, electrical outlets smoldered and, in due course, the kitchen stove caught fire. Utility workers later red-tagged one of the two furnaces and one of the two water heaters.

She described Mr. Miles on his cell phone to Mr. Platts, demanding action.

"He went to the side of my house and called Mr. Platts and they were arguing again. He said he went through this house and he don't want no part of it. I was just sitting there crying," she said.

Reached at Easy Realty Solutions East, Mr. Miles confirmed Ms. Bey's account and said he became enraged when Mr. Platts airily announced the burglary after the papers had been signed. He inspected the house and said the windows and pipes had been removed methodically.

He phoned Mr. Platts.

"I said, 'How the hell can you do this? This woman can't live here. It's not habitable. It needs to be fixed up,' " Mr. Miles said. "He gave no explanation and basically questioned why did I care. Why was I so upset?"

Since that time, Mr. Miles said he has cut off business with Mr. Platts.

Mr. Flugher, the Butler County attorney who acted as closing officer, said in a faxed statement that he had no recollection of anyone mentioning a burglary at the home.

"I may have been out of the room completing the paper work or faxing," Mr. Flugher said.

He said his standard practice is to ask buyers if they have done a preclosing walk through of the property and if they are satisfied with the condition of the house.

S&P Mortgage says it shut off all business with Easy Realty and Mr. Platts in June, after the Pennsylvania attorney general's consumer affairs division began asking questions about his dealings. Still, Mr. Platts has sent letters to clients who now owe him for the second mortgage, suggesting they contact Mr. Haggerty to arrange refinancing for their homes. Most of the first mortgages are high-interest, variable rate loans and some carry hefty early payment penalties. But refinancing would also pay off the second mortgages Mr. Platts holds.

Both Mr. Haggerty and Mr. Nearhoof said they had heard about the solicitations and told him, through his lawyer, to stop.

That hasn't stopped Mr. Platts from trying to collect on his second mortgages. In December, Ms. Bey received a letter from Easy Realty Solutions, called a "Friendly Reminder Notice" that she's behind $150 on her payments to Mr. Platts, who points out that he assisted her "in realizing the American dream" of owning a home.

"I would appreciate a prompt payment as you faithfully agreed to pay, as it so helped you," Mr. Platts writes. "To date, the payments are late and I cannot even get a courtesy return call. I know that we all have difficult periods from time to time, but all you have to do is call me.

"I'm a very reasonable man to deal with."