By Erin Tiernan — Erin@concordbridge.org
An ex-doctor and wife suing over rights to a Mattison Farm property they’ve owned since 1991 say Concord officials’ inaction helped scammers commit title theft.
Town officials are not named among the 11 defendants in a lawsuit brought by Omar Jaraki and Halla Shami Jaraki. But the couple’s lawyer told The Concord Bridge that “the town’s negligence” in failing to halt building permits helped facilitate the “fraudulent” sale.
Concord Natural Resources Director Delia Kaye said she tried to follow up with the deed holder at 211 Mattison Drive after learning about a potential scheme but “never heard back.”
The case draws attention to the growing frequency of title theft — when fraudsters steal a property owner’s identity to profit from the sale of the land.
Lisa Vesperman Still, a title underwriter and past president of the New England Land Title Association, said sophisticated scammers “have learned how to spoof” and use technology to exploit unsuspecting buyers and realtors.
“This is happening a lot more often, I think, than people realize,” Still said. “People are using email more, and everyone is rushed these days. The fraudsters know that.”
Vacant properties like the one on Mattison Drive are prime targets for title-theft scams, she said.
Jaraki bought the 1.84-acre lot for $197,000 in 1991. It sat untouched until this year, when the developers who bought the lot began building a five-bedroom, $4 million estate.
The Jarakis left Massachusetts after Omar was fired from his job as an emergency room doctor at Melrose-Wakefield Hospital in the 1990s. They would settle in South Carolina, where legal troubles would follow.
A surprise in the mail
The couple’s first clue that something was awry on Mattison Drive was a certified letter related to building permits for the Concord property. A day before a scheduled March public hearing on the permit application, Omar Jaraki called town officials to halt the proceedings.
“He asked to shut everything down, and apparently that didn’t happen,” said lawyer Richard Vetstein. “We’re still trying to find out why.”
Vetstein said a woman posing as “Halla Shami” forged a passport and South Carolina driver’s license to dupe a local real estate agent into listing the land for “well under” its estimated $1 million market value.
The scammer never met with agents or attorneys involved in the deal. Instead, she communicated entirely via email, used counterfeit notary stamps, and signed Shami’s name electronically — including for the building permit which was a condition of the sale, the 114-page civil complaint alleges.
Following his conversation with Kaye of Concord’s Natural Resources division, Jaraki sent an email — signed by both him and his wife — asking officials to pause the permitting, court documents show.
But soon after she spoke with him, Kaye learned Omar Jaraki wasn’t the registered landowner. His wife was.
“What I told him was that his wife, as the property owner, needed to submit the request to withdraw the application. I never heard anything back,” Kaye said.
Kaye’s email was not included in the court filing, but The Bridge obtained a copy through a public records request.
A property owner or their authorized representative can withdraw a permit application at any time, Kaye said. Since Halla Jaraki never responded in the Mattison Drive case, that didn’t happen, and a building permit was issued on May 1.
The sale was finalized two weeks later. Developers paid $525,000 for the property — about half its estimated market value, court documents say. Closing attorneys sent a check for $496,274 to a Pennsylvania post office box, where the still-unidentified scammer posing as Shami picked it up and cashed it.
Tangled up in court
Records show Jaraki initially granted the Mattison Drive property to his wife in 1992. Two other deeds were executed in 2005 “at the recommendation” of the Jarakis’ then-attorney to “remove any apparent confusion about ownership,” court documents say.
Federal court records reveal that during that time, Jaraki was embroiled in a bankruptcy lawsuit in South Carolina.
Jaraki has a lengthy criminal history dating back to at least 1999, according to a Bridge review of court and medical board records. Misconduct allegations led him to relinquish his medical license in South Carolina. New York and Illinois medical boards revoked Jaraki’s license. His license to practice in Massachusetts lapsed in 1998.
Past charges include a 2008 arrest for battery in relation to allegations from multiple female patients who alleged the then-doctor touched them inappropriately. A 2010 judgment awarded a “Jane Doe” plaintiff $200,000, according to South Carolina court records.
His multiple shoplifting convictions included one in which he once stole a home theater projector and video game from a South Carolina Sam’s Club and another in which he pleaded guilty to stealing a rocking chair from a Cracker Barrel in 2010.
Vetstein, the Jarakis’ attorney, told The Bridge he was aware of much of his client’s criminal past but said Omar Jaraki’s “criminal history has nothing to do with them getting their land stolen. Absolutely nothing.”
Under a court injunction, meanwhile, construction is paused and developers are barred from entering the property at 211 Mattison Drive until the lawsuit is adjudicated.
Developers who purchased the land in the alleged scam have denied “any and all liability.”
On October 25, they filed a third-party complaint seeking damages from the still-unknown scammer, real estate agents, and lawyers whose “negligent and wrongful acts” helped broker the deal, court documents state.
