Like the housing industry, real estate “guru” Mark Bosworth is in crash mode

Russell Bosworth had rented them the home of a crazy cat lady who, the couple later learned, had died in the house, her body lying undiscovered for days. Russell refused to return their deposit. He refunded $500 only after the couple's story appeared in a TV news report, according to the real estate department.

The main problem for Russell was the intense official scrutiny that followed the debacle. When investigators arrived at the Peoria company's office for a scheduled audit in summer 2006, they found it abandoned. Russell Bosworth hadn't bothered to inform his clients, 90 of whom soon complained to the real estate department.

The security deposits of people renting from the landlords were supposed to be held in a trust account by Russell's property-management company. But the money — about $350,000 — was gone. Russell Bosworth had used it to pay the salary of one of his employees and to purchase other homes, the real estate department found.

Office equipment and furniture from Arizona High Performance Realty suddenly ended up at Home America's office. Mark Bosworth admitted to New Times that he and his employees contacted Russell's clients, soliciting them to switch over to Home America now that Russell's business was defunct.

"The day he was out of business, we had a right to solicit," Mark Bosworth says.

But Wercinski says his department has a problem with that.

In notes from a later audit of Russell's business, state investigators wrote that one of Mark Bosworth's top operatives at Home America, Berne Fleming, failed to advise Russell's clients that Home America was owned by Russell's brother, and that both Mark and Russell "each had a financial interest in having Home America obtain property-management agreements" from Russell's former customers.

"This is the starting point for why we are here today," Wercinski says, referring to his department's ongoing investigation into the many complaints against GoRenter.com, formerly Home America.

Wercinski's department banned Russell Bosworth from real estate activities last October and ordered him to pay back his clients' money.

As this story went to press, Russell Bosworth was preparing for his trial on burglary charges — he's accused of stealing carpet, appliances and other items from rental homes owned by Berne Fleming and other Mark Bosworth employees. He put them in his own rented home, a home that Mark Bosworth owned.

After Mark learned what had happened, he informed police of his brother's actions — proof, he says, that he's a straight shooter.

Russell Bosworth could not be reached for comment.

Mark Bosworth's detractors say they would like to know what Russell Bosworth is telling investigators about his brother these days. Some of Mark's former employees say they've been cooperating with investigators from the Attorney General's Office, the Arizona Corporation Commission, and the IRS.

Mark Bosworth has an answer for just about every criticism. Trouble is, a lot of his answers are hard to swallow.

Take what he says about his divorce from Brenda Sue. Bosworth says he began seeking a divorce in 1989. But the divorce didn't happen until 1995 because, Bosworth claims, they were often separated during that period and it was difficult to serve her with legal papers.

Sure, his books at Home America were a mess as of last year, and customers were justified in complaining, he admits. But the problem, he says, was simply a software foul-up that took some time to fix.

That sounds reasonable until he says the software problem went on for eight months.

Bosworth says the Department of Real Estate has a personal vendetta against him, that Commissioner Wercinski is using the Home America case to make a name for himself.

Bosworth says he didn't forge Magelsen's name on documents, that Magelsen "pressured" a company employee (Bosworth has no idea whom) to sign the deeds for Magelsen's own purposes.

"Whoever did that, it was at Ben's instruction," Bosworth claims.

Magelsen denies it, of course, and the jury in his lawsuit didn't believe that explanation, either.

In the Martha Mow case, Bosworth admitted he signed the widow's name on a deed that he then used to sell the property himself. As Judge Katz noted in his recent ruling, Bosworth had "signed [Mow's] name and had it notarized as if she were present."

Bosworth's excuse is that he made a stupid mistake.

At the time, he says, he thought that because Mow had given him power of attorney and wanted him to sell the property (Mow denies both claims), he was legally allowed to sign her name.

No power of attorney from Mow has ever been presented in the case. Bosworth says that is because she stole the file declaring power of attorney while working at Home America for several weeks after her husband died.

But even if any of that happened, it's incredible that the real estate "guru" didn't know that even with power of attorney, you can't legally sign someone's name without noting what is going on. The person with the power of attorney is supposed to sign the owner's name to the document, then sign his or her name with an abbreviated note: "POA."

Bosworth should have known that because that's the way he used power of attorney granted him by client Brian Schofield of Utah in a home sale in 2003. That was more than two years before he signed Mow's name on her property's deed without noting the supposed power-of-attorney privilege.