Owners of strip club where Sean Bell was killed nabbed in $2M mortgage fraud sca

Mar 10, 2010, 10:58 PM

The mother-and-son owners of the strip club where Sean Bell was killed were nabbed Tuesday in a $2 million mortgage fraud scam.

Queens prosecutors say Martina Duran, 57, and Roger Arias, 36, used identities stolen from the dead and the elderly to buy and sell three properties.

One victim was an elderly woman from the Dominican Republic who had never set foot on U.S. soil, prosecutors say.

Duran pocketed $250,000 from the July 2006 sale of a $500,000 South Ozone Park home, prosecutors said.

"These type of financial crimes have real-life consequences and will not be tolerated," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Duran and Arias were each being held in lieu of $250,000 bond following arraignment.

Duran boasted to investigators that she had more than $1 million in assets in the Dominican Republic and needed armed guards to escort her throughout the country.

She and her son owned the defunct Club Kalua, where Bell was fatally shot in 2006 by cops probing reports of prostitution.

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Dudester15 years ago

Consider: On one island, two nations. On one side a nation that has lived in chaos for more than 100 years, requiring intervention by US Forces no less than four times (Haiti) and on the other side of the island a modern nation-Dominican Republic.

MisterGuy15 years ago

Really?? You speak like someone that's never actually been to the DR. They have their military with machine guns guarding the major airport in DR, and many of the local resorts in DR have armed men with machine guns guarding those properties as well. In fact, these same resorts don't recommend leaving those compounds without an armed escort. Sure, it's a cheap place to visit, but I'll take a pass on both sides of Hispaniola myself.

Oh, and the USA occupied DR from 1916â€“24, and it was invaded again by the USA in 1965-66. Also, DR actually has roughly 7 times more external debt than Haiti. Haiti has only gotten somewhere between $25-150 million/year from the USA from roughly 1995-2006.