'Flip This House' Star Sam Leccima Faces Claims of Fraud
According to the Associated Press, A&E, the network that ran the show has pulled all reruns that feature Leccima and have taken all mention of him off of their website, as now authorities and legal filings are claiming that Leccima never sold houses that he claimed to and the renovations and repairs made to homes were fake -- just quick patch jobs, often temporary, that looked good on camera.
An Atlanta pharmaceutical representative, Sonya McGee, said that she was caught up in an investment scheme, a scam hosted by Leccima that cost her $4,000. She and others claim that the people on the show who are prospective buyers are actually fakes too; they are really friends and family of Leccima who are posing as buyers for the show. Often "Sold" signs would be put in front of homes that remained unsold. On the show he was depicted as making profits of upwards of $77,000 from renovating and selling homes, reports the Associated Press.
Atlanta real estate records did show that he did not own several of the homes that he featured on television.
WAGA-TV of Atlanta, who first featured the story on Leccima, took a look inside of one of the homes featured on the show and found mismatched floors and patched walls that had not been painted.
Also, Leccima depicted himself as a real estate investor on the show in 2006, when in fact he does not have a real estate license; it was revoked in 2005 by the Georgia Real Estate Commission. The panel had ruled that Leccima "does not bear a good reputation for honesty, trustworthiness, integrity, and competence." The Georgia Secretary of State's office is now conducting an investigation on him for securities fraud.
According to Leccima he had never claimed to own the houses. He neither confirmed nor denied that his home renovations on the show were staged. He also suggested that A&E and Departure Films knew precisely what he was doing. In an interview conducted via telephone, Leccima stated, "Ask anybody who works in television how a reality show is made and you'll find that ours was a very typical approach."
Leccima said that he has been advised by his attorney to not make statements about the claims but feel they come from being a high-profile person.
"I'm a business person and I think I have as many people that like me as don't like me," he said. "Anyone who puts their face on national television should realize they've signed a Faustian deal of sorts."
Source:
Published by Chloe Logan
Chloe Logan is here just to sound off, mostly. View profile
- Reality Show Junkie: When Did I Start Watching That? With the overflow of reality shows on television today, many of us swore and swore again that we would not watch "that show" or begin to fathom being a Reality Show Junkie!
- OctoMom Nadya Suleman Close to Signing Reality Show Deal The Nadya Suleman circus just might be close to setting the big top down on a reality show deal. "People" reported Friday that the OctoMom had sat down with at least four different production companies in negotiations...
- OctoMom Nadya Suleman Gets a Reality Show OctoMom Nadya Suleman actually does have a reality show in the works. Often speculated about and even more often offered as motivation for having octuplets to begin with, it seems that the OctoMom has negotiated a dea...
- Rookie Real Estate Agent in Bay Area Credits Mentorship real estate agents, new real estate agents, San Francisco Bay Area, East Bay real estate
- An OctoMom Nadya Suleman Documentary? Does This Mean No Reality Show? The OctoMom is attempting to close a deal with a United Kingdom production company to do a longevity documentary on her and her 14 children. Does this mean that a reality show is not in the works?
- Is This a Good Time for House Flipping?
- Flip This House Becomes Forget This House
- From Homeless to Homeowner: Buying Real Estate in Marietta, GA
- Foreign Money Flooding into Commercial Real Estate
- In a Maryland Real Estate Agents Search, Where Do You Fall?
- Examining the Real Estate Market
- Advertising Your Real Estate Business on Television
|
|
8 Comments
Post a CommentI love that show!!!
Interesting story-- but isn't all reality television fake? Haha. In all seriousness, one does not need to be a real estate agent to invest, buy, sell, flip, etc. My fiance's friend buys and flips a lot of houses and does well at it. Perhaps he lied about ownership and how much he made, but it DID make for good TV. Perhaps A&E should have looked into the show they were buying more before they purchased the eps. The point is that at least a lot of people learned that they could flip houses and got ideas... so, at least people learned something. On most home improvement shows, it seems the host doesn't own the houses, so I really don't think its a big deal. Good job on the story though.
First of all, you don't have to have a real estate license to be a real estate investor. Nor do you have to actually "own" a house in order to make a profit from it. Just ask a real estate attorney for the definition of "Equitable Interest".
I'm a real estate investor and personally met Sam earlier this year. Being in this business, I know first hand that the person that "appears" to be successful will have an easier time getting a new investor to buy my property than an experienced investor.
Once Sam was on TV then all of the new investors were automatically "impressed" by his newfound celebrity status. Experienced investors know to do due dilegence before breaking out the checkbook. Sam had negative claims filed against him in Atlanta's Better Business Bureau back in June 2006 and Flip This House didn't air his episodes until July 2006.
Just because someone is on television doesn't mean their an expert. It just means the producers felt that he would come across to th
And to think, I'd been watching that show thinking, "Why can't we do something like that?"
Amazing!
Hmmm..would have to check his current statements against what he's said in the past before I pass judgment.
I was a fan of the show on A&E until Richard Davis and Team Trademark left the show to migrate to TLC. The show on TLC is a much better product anyway!
That's interesting.