A Long Island man was indicted after netting nearly $1 million from two New York City houses he fraudulently sold — one of which used to be home to the man convicted of kidnapping Charles Lindbergh's baby.
Salome Vega was charged with two counts of grand larceny after he transferred the titles of properties in the Bronx and Brooklyn through a variety of phony documents, and even having someone else impersonate a dead homeowner, according to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.
An investigation revealed that the 46-year-old Vega, from Hempstead, sold the title to a two-family home on East 222nd Street in the Bronx on Aug. 6, 2019, Gonzalez said. At the time of the closing, which was held at an office in Midwood, Brooklyn, he allegedly had someone pretend to be the homeowner, who in reality had died.
Vega sold the home to a buyer for $250,000. It's the same house where Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who kidnapped Charles Lindbergh Jr. ninety years ago in a case that captivated the nation and the world, once resided, the DA said.
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Less than a week later, Vega allegedly opened business checking account with the same name of the deceased homeowner, and deposited a check worth $242,828 from the sale. Over the next two months, the DA said that Vega empties the newly formed account.
The transfer of the deed was later vacated by the Bronx County Public Administrator after it was found that the owner of the East 222nd Street home had died in April 2019, about four months before the fraudulent closing, according to the investigation.
The investigation also revealed that Vega sold another two-family house, this time on Autumn Avenue in East New York, in Feb. 2023, the DA alleged. That house sold for $675,000 after he posed as the CEO of Merit Homes Inc., which owned the property.
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At the time of closing, Vega allegedly requested that funds from the sale be made payable to him personally in amounts of $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 and #33,772, respectively. He then cashed those payments at a number of check-cashing stores in Queens and Long Island.
In all, the houses sold for a combined $925,000, according to Gonzalez.
On top of being accused of the deed frauds, Vega also attempted to steal nearly $300,000 in COVID-19 tax relief payments by opening a business account for a surveillance company that did not exist, the DA's office said.
"This defendant allegedly filled his pockets with the ill-gotten gains of two separate real estate transactions in which he stole – then sold – the titles to two New York City properties while also attempting to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in COVID-19 tax relief funds," said DA Gonzalez.
Attorney information for Vega was not immediately available. His next court appearance is scheduled for Dec. 6.
