Authorities arrested DeMarco, 31, of Conshohocken, on Tuesday. He is being held pending a detention hearing Friday. His attorney, Chris Warren, did not return a call seeking comment. A call to DeMarco's residence in Conshohocken before the arrest was not returned.
Michael J. Saul, an alleged DeMarco victim in Spotswood, N.J., who says he lost more than $400,000 in the scam, was glad to learn from authorities of DeMarco's arrest.
Saul turned to DeMarco REI for help after a bankruptcy filing in 2005. DeMarco found a straw buyer, who allowed his credit profile to be used to get a 2007 loan on the house as a front for DeMarco. The difference between the new mortgage and the amount of money needed to pay off the old one supposedly went into an escrow or rent-reserve account for the homeowners.
In Saul's case, that amount, the equity in the house, was $147,900, Saul said, but it never went into a special account. Instead, the indictment said, DeMarco used that money and millions more obtained in the same way to run his operations and lead an extravagant lifestyle.
Saul and his wife paid $2,200 a month in rent for a year. After Saul's wife received a large legal settlement, the couple decided to repurchase the house.
They traveled to Philadelphia three times to pay the $245,000 needed to get their house back. "Every time we were up there, he made some kind of excuse," Saul said of DeMarco.
After the straw buyer, Martin Bronfman, asked for the money, Saul wired the $245,000 to DeMarco in March 2009, believing it was going into a business account to pay off the house.
