Northern California Real Estate Investor Convicted of Rigging Bids at Public Foreclosure Auctions

A federal jury convicted real estate investor Glenn Guillory for his role in a conspiracy to rig bids at public foreclosure auctions held in Contra Costa County, California, the Department of Justice announced today.

After a week-long trial before the Honorable Chief Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton in Oakland, California, the jury convicted Guillory yesterday of conspiring to rig bids at foreclosure auctions in a conspiracy that operated from as early as June 2008 until about January 2011. Guillory was charged in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the Northern District of California on Dec. 3, 2014.

The evidence at trial showed that Guillory and his co-conspirators agreed not to compete for real estate sold at foreclosure auctions in Contra Costa County. The conspirators negotiated payoffs for agreeing not to compete and held second, private auctions known as “rounds” to determine the amounts of the payoffs for the individuals who had participated in the bid suppression.

Including Guillory’s conviction, 65 individuals have either pleaded guilty or been convicted after trial as a result of the department’s ongoing antitrust investigations into bid-rigging at public foreclosure auctions in Northern California (Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco and San Mateo counties). Indictments are pending against several other real estate investors who participated in the conspiracy.

The investigation is being conducted by the Antitrust Division’s San Francisco Office and the FBI’s San Francisco Office. Anyone with information concerning bid rigging or fraud related to real-estate foreclosure auctions should contact the Antitrust Division’s San Francisco Office at 415-934-5300 or call the FBI tip line at 415-553-7400.