Remember that attorney Roger Besu?

We've all been hearing about Broward attorney Scott Rothstein, how he stole money from his clients and subsequently tried to hide his assets, does everyone remember disbarred attorney Roger Besu that we discussed earlier? Based 0n the comments from our September 9, 2009 blog post, it looks like we really hit a nerve with our readers! For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Besu story it's easily summed up with the following:

• Around October 2008 Mr. Besu is holding approximately $3 million in his trust account from the sale of one of his clients businesses.
• During October his client tries to withdraw the money from Mr. Besu's trust account unsuccessfully.
• After several visits and calls to Mr. Besu, it seems as Mr. Besu has vanished into thin air.
• A Florida Bar audit of Mr. Besu's trust account reveals that there's at least $2.6 million dollars missing from his trust account.
  

We learn later on that Mr. Besu and his wife had apparently left the country leaving his clients high and dry with apparently no intention of coming back to the United States. Mr. Besu was later arrested in Ecuador boarding a flight to Panama. Jeeze, that's a pretty $hitty thing to do isn't it? Mr. Besu decided that he had enough of his life here in Florida, grabbed his clients money and left the country for life in central and south america.

Don't you wonder how all this went down? Was this a spur of the moment kind of thing or was the theft of his clients life savings a premeditated scheme to defraud? That's a good question isn't it? I have to wonder if indeed it was premeditated, did he do it on his own or did he get others to help him with the theft? The question that begs to be asked is after being an attorney in Miami for nearly 40 years, what happened to all of Mr. Besu's assets? After all, the only recourse those who've been screwed by him have at this point is to try to go after his assets, isn't it? Oddly enough though, a quick scan through the property appraisers office shows that Mr. Besu OWNS NO PROPERTY IN MIAMI DADE COUNTY. Bizarre seeing as how Mr. Besu was a real estate attorney who practiced through at least three real estate bubbles and who I personally know was involved in several large land deals.

So where does that leave us? Are we to assume that the police and the state attorneys office have left no stone unturned in the Roger Besu case? He has been charged with Grand Theft and was originally being held on FIVE MILLION dollars bail, you have to wonder though, did anyone thoroughly investigate what went on when the $2 million++ went missing? We know that Detective Jorge Baluja wasn't on the case and based on what we've seen assistant state attorney Bill Kostrzewski doing in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, we know that if he'd been on the case he'd probably end up filing charges against the man whose money was stolen, so whose left to go through the mess and find out what Mr. Besu was up to? I guess that responsibility falls on some crackpot with a blog, doesn't it?

Here we go folks, let's first look at Mr. Besu's former primary residence located at 233 Palm Avenue:

Remember that the millions went missing from Mr. Besu's trust account on or about October 2008, so wouldn't you find it strange that on August 1, 2008 Mr. Besu conveyed ownership of his home to his son through a warranty deed?

Nothing wrong with that right? Perhaps Mr. Besu was really fond of his son and decided that he wanted to gift his home to him, NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! Timing is a bit strange, but whatever! It looks like shortly thereafter though, Mr. Besu's son grew tired of the home and decided to sell it, once again, NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! So here we are on February 10, 2009 and we have Christopher Besu just a few months later selling the home to Marta Pastrana...


NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! I'm sure you guys are wondering what's wrong with me, houses are bought and sold every single day! Have I run out of things to write about?! So what now? Let's now look at the mortgage that the Pastrana's obtained to purchase the house...

I've outlined the name of the lender in red. Funny though, I've never heard of this lender, since the mortgage says that it's a Florida corporation, let's take a look at what the corporate records at www.sunbiz.org show for "Urbanna Corporation"...


Anyone catch the name on that corporate record? Sound's familiar doesn't it? Jorge Besu?


Let's not get carried away here and jump to conclusions, after all, there could be other Besu's out there that aren't related to Roger or Christopher! Let's go back on year on those corporate records and see if we find anything else interesting...


Take a look at the name outlined in red, sound familiar? It's non other than ROGER BESU! For the benefit of Mr. Besu's friends in central and south america that keep googling his name and may not speak English...

Once again, let's not jump to conclusions! Instead, let's look at this timeline of events we've discussed and then you can draw your own conclusions:

• August 1, 2008 Roger Besu transfers ownership of his primary residence to his son Christopher Besu.
• October 2008 Roger Besu's client cannot reach Mr. Besu in order to withdraw over $2 million dollars Mr. Besu was holding for him in his trust account. A subsequent Florida Bar audit of Mr. Besu's trust account shows that there's in excess of $2.6 million dollars missing from his trust account. Mr. Besu is nowhere to be found.
• February 10, 2009 Christopher Besu sells his fathers home to Marta Pastrana, the same day Marta Pastrana obtains a mortgage from a Florida corporation named Urbanna Corp whose sole corporate officer is named Jorge Besu. Further investigation reveals that up until 2008 Mr. Roger Besu was a officer of the corporation as well, but was removed before the 2009 corporate renewal.

Do you guys think what I'm thinking? I hope today's story was of some help to that widow that emailed me stating that she's missing money from her husbands estate that Mr. Besu was handling. It's a shame that this kind of work has to be left to some obscure blogger on the internet, we know the cops or the state attorneys office haven't looked into what we've found today, if they had Mr. Besu (and maybe other family members) would be facing additional charges. We know that the police have their hands full, but you have to ask yourself, what are the prosecutors doing? Do you think they're working overtime on making sure Mr. Besu gets a lengthy prison term? I doubt it. I'm sure probation is in the cards for Mr. Besu.

We'll take a look tomorrow and see what at least one prosecutor is busy doing...