Opinion ID: 6499440
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Crescent Avenue Property

Text: In 2012, Krasilnikova purchased the Crescent Avenue property with a $250,000 gift she received from her parents. Miller handled the closing by himself at Krasilnikova’s direction. At the time, Miller and Krasilnikova were engaged. Krasilnikova did not obtain title to the property immediately. Instead, county property records indicate that the title passed to a land trust. The beneﬁciaries of the trust were Krasilnikova and Ellen Malecki, a person who would play a big role in later transactions, and they were listed as joint tenants. In December 2012, Miller and Krasilnikova were married. They razed the old house on the Crescent Avenue property and built a new one. The improvements cost around $425,000. To help ﬁnance the building, SRK Ventures LLC issued a mortgage loan for $200,000 to the trust, with the loan to be paid oﬀ in four months. The loan agreement bore Krasilnikova’s and Ellen Malecki’s signatures, but Malecki testiﬁed that her signature was forged. Miller himself guaranteed the construction loan. A law ﬁrm disbursed the funds from the trust to the subcontractors with Krasilnikova’s and Ellen Malecki’s signatures, but Malecki testiﬁed that her signature was again forged. 3 most cases. Sheth, 759 F.3d at 716 (omission in original), quoting 28 U.S.C. § 3001(a). And no other federal law, such as the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act, applies in this case. See § 3001(b) (other collection procedures may apply if “another Federal law specifies procedures for recovering on a claim or a judgment for a debt arising under such law”). 3 The loan was not paid off within the four months, so SRK filed a lien on the property. Then in October 2013, a friend of Krasilnikova’s paid off the balance of the SRK loan, which at that time was $250,000. SRK then released the lien. Krasilnikova reimbursed the friend with part of the 8 No. 21-2725 Miller and Krasilnikova moved into the Crescent Avenue property in 2013. The two would go on to live together and raise two children there until they sold the property in 2019, three months after Miller’s sentencing. During those years of the couple’s residence, however, the paper trail of titles, deeds, and mortgages was a byzantine tangle. In November 2013, Krasilnikova transferred to Ellen Malecki and Malecki’s husband her interests in the land trust that held title to the Crescent Avenue property. Krasilnikova acknowledged that her action “took myself oﬀ the title.” Ellen Malecki testiﬁed that the only Malecki signature on the document approving the transfer was forged. A week later, the trust deeded the Crescent Avenue property to the Maleckis in their own names. Ellen Malecki testiﬁed that, once again, she and her husband did not know about the deed. The Maleckis’ names would remain on the title of the Crescent Avenue property for the next two years, all while Miller and Krasilnikova lived in the home. Then came a series of additional mortgages and title transfers. First, in December 2013, a mortgage loan application was submitted to Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC in the names of the Maleckis. Miller witnessed and notarized the loan application. Carrington loaned the Maleckis $417,000. In what is becoming a familiar story, Ellen Malecki testiﬁed that she did not know about the Carrington mortgage, that her and her husband’s signatures were forged, and that she never received the proceeds. proceeds from a later mortgage. According to the evidence in the district court, these transactions involving Krasilnikova’s friend were not documented. No. 21-2725 9 Krasilnikova admitted in her testimony that the Carrington loan was actually for her and Miller’s use. She also testiﬁed that the Maleckis’ family history and ﬁnancial information, instead of her own, were submitted to qualify for the mortgage. (We use the passive voice advisedly because Krasilnikova’s testimony about how this fraudulent transaction was accomplished was so vague. See Dkt. 188, at 20–25.) As the district court noted, Krasilnikova testiﬁed that she was under the impression, from Miller, that Ellen Malecki had agreed to “help me out” because Krasilnikova’s credit score was not high enough to obtain a loan in her name. Cf. 18 U.S.C. § 1344 (criminal bank fraud). The district court also found, on a point important to the bottom-line ﬁnding of shared ownership, that Miller and Krasilnikova made monthly payments on the loan from a joint checking account, and that Miller and Krasilnikova paid property taxes from the same joint checking account until late 2015. Property records indicate that the Maleckis quit-claimed the property to Myers Building & Consulting in September 2015. Once again, Ellen Malecki testiﬁed that her and her husband’s signatures were forged and that she did not know about the transaction. It was Miller who notarized their supposed signatures on the quit-claim deed. A week later, Myers Building & Consulting quit-claimed the title to Krasilnikova in her own name. Once again, Miller notarized the transaction. On this transaction, Krasilnikova testiﬁed, her own signature on the document was forged. Still, this is the deed that Krasilnikova relies on to claim sole ownership. In October 2015, two more mortgages were taken out on the Crescent Avenue property. The ﬁrst was from First Generation Capital LLC, which issued a loan for $310,000 secured 10 No. 21-2725 by a mortgage on the property. The mortgage listed the Maleckis as the mortgagors and OV18 LLC, one of Miller’s companies, as the borrower. This time, Ellen Malecki testiﬁed, she and her husband had actually signed the document. But she added that she signed the document at Miller’s request without knowing what the document was for and that she did not receive any proceeds from the loan. As for Krasilnikova, she testiﬁed that she did not know about this mortgage or loan. Even though the loan was secured by a mortgage granted by the Maleckis, who were no longer even nominally on the title, the First Generation Capital loan was released on January 31, 2016. The record does not reﬂect who, if anyone, paid oﬀ the loan. The second October 2015 mortgage came from FirstMerit Bank. It issued a loan to Krasilnikova for $500,000 secured by a mortgage on the Crescent Avenue property. Krasilnikova testiﬁed that she used the proceeds from the FirstMerit loan to pay oﬀ the earlier Carrington loan. Krasilnikova now asserts on appeal that she made monthly payments on the FirstMerit loan, but she provided no documentary evidence for support in the district court. Then in May 2019, days after Miller was sentenced for wire fraud, Krasilnikova entered into a contract to sell the Crescent Avenue property to a third party for $855,000. Some of the proceeds were then used to pay oﬀ the FirstMerit loan. Under the parties’ agreement, the net proceeds were placed in escrow pending the court’s resolution of the dispute. The court later granted a joint request from the parties to release half of the net proceeds to Krasilnikova while it determined whether the government had an interest in the rest. No. 21-2725 11