Matthew Cox

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Matthew Cox
Born July 2, 1969 (1969-07-02) (age 38)
Flag of the United States Florida
Status incarcerated
Occupation Mortgage broker

Matthew Bevan Cox (born July 2, 1969), commonly known as Matthew Cox, also sometimes known as Matthew B. Cox and Matt Cox, is an American felon and con man who has been convicted of conspiracy and grand theft. Cox, also an aspiring author, wrote an unpublished manuscript entitled The Associates. In the manuscript a character, which was most likely based upon himself, travelled the country committing mortgage fraud. Cox later committed crimes in almost exactly the same manner as the character in the novel had.

Cox was able to falsify documents to make it appear as though he owned properties which he did not, and then was able to fraudulently obtain several mortgages on the properties for 5–6 times their actual worth. Throughout his criminal career Cox is estimated to have acquired several million dollars in this manner. He also enlisted the help of several female accomplices, some of whom are now in prison or have served time in prison. Cox was apprehended by authorities on November 16, 2006. Indicted on 42 counts, with prison sentences of potentially 400 years if convicted, Cox plea bargained his sentence down to a maximum of 54 years on April 11, 2007.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Born in Florida, Cox struggled with severe dyslexia as a youth[1] and as a result his teachers advised him to get a job working with his hands. In response to this, Cox took up art and sculpture, attending the University of South Florida, in Tampa, Florida, and majoring in Art.[2] Immediately after college Cox abandoned his career as an artist, instead taking a job as an insurance agent. However, he quickly became unsatisfied with his income and began seeking a different, more high-paying job.[2]

[edit] Adult life and criminal career

[edit] Tampa, Florida

Cox painted sprawling art deco murals in several of the Tampa apartments he fraudulently obtained.
Cox painted sprawling art deco murals in several of the Tampa apartments he fraudulently obtained.

Cox left his job as an insurance agent to take a job as a mortgage broker with a local company.[3] While there he developed an unscrupulous reputation, which was heightened by his authorship of an unpublished 317 page manuscript entitled The Associates.[4] The novel detailed a character, written obviously as a copy of himself,[2] who travels the country committing mortgage fraud. Cox even went so far as to tell co-workers of the novel and elaborate on the novel's details.[5] "He sent it to a lot of people to see if they thought it worked" said a former co-worker.[4] After being fired from the company when he was convicted of mortgage fraud, Cox was able to fake a good credit history and used that to buy dozens of homes and properties.[2] He even used his skills as an artist to decorate the properties with elaborate art deco murals. Cox then charmed a young local married woman, Alison Arnold, into believing that he would be able to provide a wealthy and luxurious life for her.[2] While courting Arnold he repeatededly took her to crime films such as The Italian Job and in particular Catch Me if You Can—which he reportedly adored and watched several times—and began to detail his criminal plans to her. Cox often filed fraudulent mortgage documents and in several cases was able to mortgage properties by 5–6 times their actual worth.[2] In this practice, commonly known as "flipping" in the real estate community, Cox either forged or had accomplices provide him with inflated appraisals to further drive up the value of the mortgages.[6] After Arnold refused to get breast implants and abandon her son, Cox began to court another woman. Rebecca Hauck, unlike Arnold, was willing to leave her 13 year old son Bryce. After being tipped off by a reporter that a local newspaper, the St. Petersburg Times, was investigating him, Cox fled town with Hauck. Two days later, on December 14, 2003, a story entitled "Dubious housing deals line avenue" hit the newsstand.[2][7]

[edit] Crime spree across the southern states

Cox fled to Atlanta, Georgia where he settled with Hauck. During this time, Cox travelled to Mobile, Alabama, and using the identity of a former co-worker, acquired credit cards and enough credit to rent a home. After filing false documents that indicated he owned the home, Cox took out several mortgages on the property in the amount of several hundred thousand dollars.[2] He was so bold in these activities he even took out one mortgage in the name of "C. Montgomery Burns", in an homage to The Simpsons television character.[2] Cox then did the same for several other properties, after which the couple moved to the Tallahassee, Florida area. Cox was able to convince Hauck to get breast implants and liposuction surgery while the couple was in Atlanta, by constantly badgering her and insulting her physical appearance.[2][8]

Authorities in the Atlanta area began to discover Cox's activities and then ascertained his identity. On August 6, 2004 authorities issued arrest warrants for conspiracy, stolen identification documents, mail and wire fraud, money laundering and social security number fraud.[9] News broadcasts showed photos of Cox and Hauck and requested that viewers provide any information as to their whereabouts.[2] By the Spring of 2005, Cox and Hauck had eluded authorities for eighteen months, using dozens of identities including ones stolen from former co-workers and acquaintances. Additionally, Cox obtained a number of stolen identities from the homeless by posing as a survey–taking Red Cross worker.[10] At this point, due to remorse and anxiety, Arnold called the FBI and confessed.[2] She was sentenced to two years in prison for numerous charges, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud and identity theft.[2] Arnold was also ordered to pay US$300,000 dollars in restitution to her victims.[2] Shortly thereafter, Cox filed several mortgages on two houses in less than a week in Columbia, South Carolina. A local clerk noticed this and a fraud alert was issued on one of Cox's money laundering bank accounts. Cox was then arrested when he returned to the bank to make a transaction. However, he told authorities that his name was Gary Lee Sullivan,[11] one of approximately thirty aliases Cox had at the time, and due to the fact that Sullivan had no open warrants the police released him.[2] Shortly thereafter, Cox and Hauck broke up, and after receiving some money from Cox, Hauck moved to Houston, where she lived in hiding under an assumed name. One year later Hauck was found and arrested by the Secret Service.[2] Convicted on numerous counts, Hauck was sentenced to six years in prison and five years of supervised release.[12] In May 2006, after being on the run from authorities for two and a half years, Cox was placed on the Secret Service's Most Wanted List.[12]

[edit] Nashville, Tennessee

The week that Hauck was sentenced to prison Cox narrowly escaped arrest again. At the time Cox was living in Nashville, Tennessee under the name Joseph Carter, and dating a single mother who was unaware of his criminal past.[13] He was reported by the couple's babysitter after the babysitter became suspicious of Cox and discovered his identity while researching him online.[14] Cox escaped capture this time due to a chance series of events—he had moved himself and the woman he was living with, Amanda Gardner, to a hotel temporarily after their home had been burglarized.[2] On November 16, 2006, Cox was arrested by a half dozen Secret Service agents—who had been pursuing him for over two years—when he and Gardener returned home from the hotel.[2][14] Cox faced 42 counts of fraud, in addition to felony charges for fleeing while on probation from a previous conviction.[5] With potential prison sentences of over 400 years looming,[6] Cox negotiatiated a plea bargain agreement that exposes him to a maximum of 54 years in prison and a $2 million fine.[15] Depending on the source, estimates of the amount of money Cox fraudulently obtained vary from $5 million,[2] to over $15 million,[16] to more than $25 million.[17] Cox is estimated to have fraudulently mortgaged over one hundred properties.[18]

[edit] Unpublished novel

Authorities were amazed by the similarities with the manuscript, which they found several years before apprehending Cox, and his actual crimes.[4] To begin with there are physical similarities. The fictional character is 5 ft 7 in, and has brown hair and blue eyes.[4] Cox is 5 ft 6 in, and has brown hair and green eyes.[4] The fictional character drove a silver Audi TT, illegally acquired $2.7 million dollars of Tampa real estate, was an alumnus of the University of South Florida, and formerly worked as an insurance salesman. Cox did the same thing in each case—he is even accused of using fake identities to borrow exactly $2.7 million on Tampa homes and properties.[4]

In the novel, the fictional character rents a home with a female accomplice, similar to the one Cox rented with Rebecca Hauck in Atlanta.[19] The character then opens accounts at several banks in the area so that he can use them for money laundering purposes. Cox did exactly the same thing.[19] Then, Cox, exactly as the character in the novel had done, forged a document, claiming that the mortgage on the home—which he did not even own—was paid off.[19] After which the character in the novel found lenders and told them he owned the property outright. Cox is in prison for doing the exact same thing.[19]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Bishop, Shane. Telling the Tale of a Silver Tongued Liar, msnbc.msn.com, March 30, 2007, accessed April 15, 2007.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Morrison, Keith. Fraud by the book, msnbc.msn.com, April 2, 2007, accessed April 4, 2007.
  3. ^ Vickers, Marcia. The Bonnie and Clyde of mortgage fraud, Fortune, November 4, 2006, accessed April 4, 2007.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Testerman, Jeff. Fraud by the book: Novelist becomes his own hero, St. Petersburg Times, December 19, 2004, accessed April 4, 2007.
  5. ^ a b Umberger, Mary. A mortgage scam you can make book on, Chicago Tribune, December 3, 2006, accessed April 4, 2007.
  6. ^ a b Testerman, Jeff. Fraud leader had a lot of help, St. Petersburg Times, April 10, 2007, accessed April 15, 2007.
  7. ^ Testerman, Jeff. Dubious housing deals line avenue, St. Petersburg Times, December 15, 2003, accessed April 4, 2007.
  8. ^ Testerman, Jeff. A tale of couple's life on the run, St. Petersburg Times, May 22, 2006, accessed April 17, 2007.
  9. ^ Most wanted poster Matthew Cox (PDF), United States Secret Service, accessed April 5, 2007.
  10. ^ Nahmias, David E. Hauck Pleads Guilty to Mortgage Fraud; Cox Still at Large (PDF), United States Department of Justice, May 15, 2006, accessed April 5, 2007.
  11. ^ Testerman, Jeff. Tampa's Matthew B. Cox is Suspected In More Loan Fraud, St. Petersburg Times, April 20, 2005, accessed April 15, 2007.
  12. ^ a b U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Secret Service Most Wanted Fugitive Captured in Nashville, Tennessee (PDF), secretservice.gov, November 16, 2006, accessed April 4, 2007.
  13. ^ Testerman, Jeff. Cox arrest stuns latest girlfriend, St. Petersburg Times, November 17, 2006, accessed April 18, 2007.
  14. ^ a b Testerman, Jeff. Sitter's fears set arrest in motion, St. Petersburg Times, November 17, 2006, accessed April 4, 2007.
  15. ^ Testerman, Jeff. No happy ending for master of loan fraud, St. Petersburg Times, April 11, 2007, accessed April 15, 2007.
  16. ^ Vickers, Marcia. Mortgage scam suspect arrested, Fortune, November 17, 2006, accessed April 4, 2007.
  17. ^ Jonsson, Patrik. Real estate fraud rises in US, The Christian Science Monitor, December 14, 2006, accessed April 15, 2007.
  18. ^ Torpy, Bill. ID theft 'poster child' nets $7 million, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 11, 2007, accessed April 18, 2007.
  19. ^ a b c d 'The Associates', msnbc.msn.com, April 1, 2007, accessed April 4, 2007.

[edit] External links

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Persondata
NAME Matthew Bevan Cox
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Convicted felon, confidence man
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1969
PLACE OF BIRTH Florida
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH