Man who claimed he was victim, arrested in house-stealing scheme

None — A man, who told Channel 2 Action News he was an unsuspecting victim, is now under arrest.

Prosecutors said Matthew Lowery posed as a renter, in a scheme to steal empty houses.

DeKalb County deputies had been looking for Lowery since a grand jury indicted him three weeks ago. They found him Monday night living at a Staybridge Suites motel in Sandy Springs.

"I'm worried. I mean yeah I've invested money in this and this is my home," Lowery told investigative reporter Jodie Fleischer in August.

Fleischer found Lowery living in a $600,000 home on Shade Tree Way in Cumming. The home was owned by a bank, and prosecutors said it was vacant until a woman named Susan Weidman took it over. An indictment alleges she created a bogus lease for Lowery to live there.

A DeKalb grand jury indicted Weidman, Lowery, and another renter, Ian Greye, for racketeering.

"If you know someone has stolen a house, has misappropriated property, then you should not participate by staying there even if they tell you that it's okay," DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James said.

Lowery had already left the Forsyth County house when deputies went to arrest him three weeks ago. Once they found him Monday night, prosecutors got a search warrant for his hotel room to look for additional evidence. They found computers, cellphones and paperwork, which they hope will help strengthen their case.

"If you're going to tie individuals together you have to make sure they knew each other and they communicated and cellphones that's a key way, computers that's a key way, emails that's a key way," James said.

Prosecutors said Weidman was the ringleader and filed bogus paperwork to take over the houses, before placing Greye and Lowery in them.

Prosecutors figured out the renters were in on the scheme when Greye, who was the renter of a house on Champlain Street in Decatur, was arrested at the Forsyth County home Lowery was supposed to be renting.

Investigators also tied the trio to a house on Spalding Hills Drive in Sandy Springs. The DeKalb prosecutors intend to use charges from all three counties to show a pattern of criminal activity. They also want to know if there are any other suspects or properties involved.

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"It's not over. We're looking at the information we recently received, the information we received during our last search warrants and we're making a determination whether or not there are going to be more charges," James said.

A Channel 2 Action News investigation first exposed Weidman's activities last November, after she filed court documents to cancel her own home's mortgage and stop foreclosure.

She explained to Fleischer how she signed as the attorney-in-fact for the CEO of the mortgage company. The bank filed a paperwork declaring Weidman's documents fraudulent. Prosecutors in Cobb County indicted her earlier this year.

Then, a bank real estate agent contacted Channel 2 regarding Weidman's activity in DeKalb County and accused her of trying to steal a foreclosed home there.

In May, Fleischer reported on the real estate agent's efforts to stop her. Last month, after Channel 2 story exposed a similar situation in Forsyth County, DeKalb County prosecutors prepared the case for a grand jury.

Weidman, Lowery and Greye were all indicted for racketeering under Georgia's RICO statute. All three are now in jail with no bond.

WSBTV