Man, 51, jailed in bank fraud probe

Suspect’s alleged forgery for loan could cost ex-landlady her house

Friday, June 20, 2008

St. Mary’s grand jurors indicted Mack Arthur Jennings, 51, on charges of uttering a counterfeit deed of trust in 2004 and stealing the money from Barbara Ann Sparks, who learned two months ago that she faces a possible foreclosure on her house and land off Indian Bridge Road in California.

Sparks, a 56-year-old cancer patient, hired an attorney who successfully staved off a foreclosure hearing scheduled for last month, but future court proceedings lie ahead, her daughter said Thursday.

‘‘Then we’ll find out if she keeps it or loses it,” Kimberly Bowles said.

St. Mary’s sheriff’s deputies were notified in April of the foreclosure action from the deed of trust filed with the Sun Trust Bank branch in California, police reports state. Sparks told law officers that she let Jennings, a former co-worker, rent a room at her house in 1996. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2004, and moved in with her daughter in Colton’s Point.

Jennings refused to move out of the house in California, a police report states, and he was evicted several months later. The deed of trust bearing Sparks’ name and Jennings’ name was notarized in April of that year in Hollywood.

‘‘He went to the bank and got the loan,” detective Lt. Rick Burris said Thursday, ‘‘under the guise that the owner of the property was going to co-sign for him. He forged the signature.”

The offense was not discovered, the lieutenant said, as long as Jennings paid off the loan. Sparks learned her property was the collateral when those payments ended. ‘‘She didn’t know anything about the loan until he stopped making payments and she started getting foreclosure notices,” Burris said.

Sparks is undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer as she awaits a ruling on the action taken against her property used to secure the loan, her daughter said. ‘‘Mom has good days and bad days,” Bowles said. ‘‘This is very stressful on her.”