Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 51F. WSW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..
Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 51F. WSW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
Updated: May 21, 2026 @ 4:04 pm
A San Mateo man has agreed to plead guilty for his role in bid rigging and fraud conspiracies at public real estate foreclosure auctions, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.
Felony charges were filed against Ramin Yeganeh, 48, in an ongoing investigation that has led to charges being filed against 72 individuals for bid rigging in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and San Francisco counties.
Yeganeh was also charged with conspiring to use the mail to carry out a scheme to fraudulently acquire title to selected Alameda County properties sold at public auctions.
The Department of Justice alleges Yeganeh made and received payoffs and diverted money to co-conspirators that would have otherwise gone to mortgage holders and other beneficiaries by holding second, private auctions open only to members of the conspiracy between May 2008 and October 2010.
Selected properties were then awarded to the conspirators who submitted the highest bids in the second, private auctions. The private auctions often took place at or near the courthouse steps where the public auctions were held, according to the Department of Justice.
Yeganeh, the former owner of American Mortgage Realty in San Mateo, was also sued in San Mateo County for allegedly bilking an elderly Redwood City woman out of her about-to-be-foreclosed-on home in 1998 in an elaborate loan scheme, according to court documents.
He was ordered to pay more than $400,000 in restitution to the victim, Edith Ingram, who lost her home of 40 years to Yeganeh.
Ingram’s attorneys are still seeking millions in fees from the case, according to a complaint filed in San Mateo County Superior Court Sept. 4, 2014.
He faced 45 criminal charges in 1999 in San Mateo County for embezzlement, illegally operating a foreclosure consultancy business and filing false deeds of trust in cases involving Ingram and five other victims.
He pleaded no contest to the crimes in 2001 and was sentenced to six months in county jail, five years probation and ordered to pay the victims $53,000 in restitution, District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said Thursday.
In October, a federal grand jury indicted five other real estate investors for allegedly rigging bids at public auctions of foreclosed properties outside the San Mateo County courthouse in Redwood City.
The eight-count indictment against Joseph Giraudo, Raymond Grinsell, Kevin Cullinane, James Appenrodt and Abraham Farag alleged that each agreed to stop bidding or not bid at all on properties in San Mateo County in return for payoffs.
“Our Northern California real estate investigations have yielded more pleas than any other Antitrust Division matter in recent memory, but our work is not done,” Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division wrote in a statement Thursday. “The sheer number of individuals involved in these conspiracies only emphasizes how critical it is that we remain committed to investigating and prosecuting those who have corrupted the public foreclosure auction process.”
Yeganeh faces up to 40 years in federal prison and $2 million in fines.
(650) 344-5200 ext. 102
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Dirk van Ulden said:
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