Wells Fargo Exec Busted For Living Lavishly in $12 Mil House That Wasn’t Hers
Cheronda Guyton was living the high life in a $12 million 3,800 square foot beachfront house in the exclusive enclave of Malibu County. The home Guyton and her family resided in was the scene of many lavish galas that lasted well into the night.
Neighbors wondered how a Wells Fargo bank VP could afford the beachfront property’s $60,000 a month rent on her salary — even with bonuses.
The problem is the Senior Vice President in charge of foreclosed properties at Wells Fargo, wasn’t renting or buying the posh home.
The previous owners, who lost money in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, turned the home over to Wells Fargo bank to pay off a higher debt.
The bank agreed not to sell the home so the owners could align their debts and get it back. Guyton and her family moved in shortly thereafter.
According to the LA Times, Wells Fargo last week announced Guyton’s termination for the executive’s alleged personal use of the home owned by the bank.
Wells Fargo announced it would “take decisive action” against any employee “who may have violated Wells Fargo’s policies.” The bank in a statement also said it regretted “the disruption to the neighboring property owners since these allegations were made.”
Many real estate agents contacted by The Times expressed surprise and said they had not heard of similar incidents.
An agent with Keller Williams Realty, told The Times she was “appalled” by the alleged conduct and what appeared to be an obvious abuse of a position.
But one agent, Farrell “Burt” Bakman of Coldwell Banker in Beverly Hills, believes Wells Fargo knew about the illegal home squatting. He said he saw no problem with a lender using a property “as some sort of a bonus” for their executives.
“It makes sense,” he said. “It’s thinking outside of the box for Wells Fargo. They just hold on to it as an asset.”
Thanks to loyal reader Kimalah for the tip!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 1:07 pm and filed under Business women, Jobs/Occupations, Money & Finances, Scams, Scandal, real estate . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed or Trackback from your own site. This site is Gravatar enabled. Sign up to upload your own avatar.
26 Responses to “Wells Fargo Exec Busted For Living Lavishly in $12 Mil House That Wasn’t Hers”
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I agree with Farrell “Burt” Bakman of Coldwell Banker in Beverly Hills. I believe Wells Fargo knew too. They just had to do some covering up to keep other instances from becoming public. She took one for the team, that’s all.
If she did this without the consent of Wells Fargo, then she was gangsta. SMDH.
Now this is a good story. I think Wells Fargo absolutely knew about this. There are probably WF execs all over the country moving out of “their” homes as I type.
Sounds like she ran with the “free perk” she was getting as part of the job……and took her whole family with her….LOL Dang!
See, a chick like me would have turned it into the weekend honeycomb hideout…..just me and my boo!
LOL
Well someone has to get thrown under the bus for this, sucks to be her right now. There’s NO WAY she did this without someone at Wells Fargo knowing what she was up to.
I don’t know that providing housing for executive staff is completely outside the box, it’s standard practice in many countries, and has been for years… granted they might not be using foreclosed property but it’s nothing new for multinationals especially.
Its all good till you get caught.
Sad she had to loose her job over this. Not sure if I think the punishment fits the crime. These are the same banks who lied to people and forced millions to loose their homes.
The government still gave them a 2nd chance.
Hold up, Hold up! Let me get this straight….
A client “signed over” their home to Wells Fargo to pay off a higher debt. The executive INCHARGE of overseeing the property packs her and HER family in the house and LIVES there? Beachfront property? And then she had the nerve to throw galas there? Damn, that’s gully!
Yeah, I ain’t buying this. For her to throw parties on the regular (being all hot and stuff), the folks above her knew about this. Gots ta be mo careful
..trust when i say this isn’t anything new…goes on all the time..she just got caught.
damn………………she’s black. SOB.
They didn’t know. she’s the VP of foreclosures. and her husband went with this? it usually takes a whistleblower for the top execs to know what’s really going on. they really are clueless as hell and only want to know about the bottom line (dollars).
bad move on her part. s h i t, write a book about it, apologize and do Oprah. it’s ur opportunity to really “cash in.”
Why Cheronda, WHY??!!
now they got you right where they want you…SMH.
DEAD @ number 3…NOT the “weekend honeycomb hideout…”
she indeed took one for the team. they knew.
YOU LIE wells fargo.
Yep! I can see Wells Fargo under the wheels of her bus. She is going to sing like Choir Boy behind this.
This wasn’t nothing but those nosy azz neighbors who blew this up. Always trying to figure out how somebody else got something that they have or want.
Either that, or she said too much to one of her peeps. Threw one of those pah-tees and somebody from the hood was like “It ain’t going down like that! Cheronnnnda still owe me $50, but she got a big house and she pah-teein’? No indeed.”
KUDOS to Her !!!
It’s not like IT WAS some original-OR-brilliant idea… YT(s) do this kind of thing ALL THE PHUCKING TIME … NOW she can say “Done BEEN THERE and DONE THAT, NEXT”
they knew about this! come on
Stupidity to the highest power! Even if WF knew, if it ever got out she should have known they would throw her under the bus…and right into the unemployment line.
She wasn’t living there permanently it was more of a weekend home…if that makes it any better…but the red flag was when she had a luxury yacht docked just off the “backyard” and had a dingy shipping people back and forth all night long on a Saturday night. Most of the people in that area don’t have “those” types of parties…
melinla Says:
….she had a luxury yacht docked just off the “backyard” and had a dingy shipping people back and forth all night long on a Saturday night.
————
She wasn’t doing it BIG was she?!? :shocked:
Amen Elove… more power to her. I love nothing more than when someone (blk) can get away with a white collar crime.
Lmao @ Melina no she didn’t. You know those yt folks was all n da bizness. I hope she enjoyed it while it lasted.
“Neighbors complained to the Los Angeles Times that the woman and her family were using a house that was supposed to be empty.” - CBS News Crimesider
I knew it, I knew it, I knew. The neighbors. They weren’t just wondering…they were spitting venom. Dang Cheronda!
Sandra you get a gold star for this story. Good one…and on a Tuesday.
The bank agreed not to sell the home so the owners could align their debts and get it back.
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So does this mean the house was foreclosed or not. Hell the real owners may have been the whistle blowers. I can’t see people in Malibu being all chummy to wear they would even know what she did for a living. I hope we can get more info on this one.
But why would they complain to the newspaper??!! Why wouldn’t they call the police??
@miamore- It doesn’t appear that it was….
The previous homeowners, Lawrence and Linda Elins, turned over the 3,800-square-foot house to Wells Fargo in May. Their real estate agent said they were financially devastated by Bernard Madoff’s fraud scheme and had to sign the property over to Wells Fargo to help pay a larger debt.
The home was not foreclosed and the bank agreed not to immediately sell it, Langan said.
Neighbors told the Los Angeles Times they saw Guyton’s family at the house and that it was used for at least one party where guests were ferried from a yacht.
KayCeiSoul Says:
“This wasn’t nothing but those nosy azz neighbors who blew this up. Always trying to figure out how somebody else got something that they have or want.
Either that, or she said too much to one of her peeps. Threw one of those pah-tees and somebody from the hood was like “It ain’t going down like that! Cheronnnnda still owe me $50, but she got a big house and she pah-teein’? No indeed.”
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Ok, I was thinking the same thing….Someone in the WF family knew, she just took 1 4 the team as someone else stated. I hate that it had to go down for her this way.
#19, see like i thought, whistleblowers. WF didn’t know about this. “sure chonda, go on and use the Wilson’s home as ur weekend get away; hell, it’s ours anyway.” They didn’t know. Do you think HUD knows about someone living in one of their many homes across the country? How could you know unless someone drops the dime?
now she knew she was NOT going to get away with this around them white people on her block. they were watching everything she did and reporting it back to the original owners.
she didn’t get anything in writing from WF so she is out the door. her music was probably loud and somebody parked in one of those white folks driveway and that was the last straw.