Video: Victims of mortgage scheme want justice

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EVERETT, Wash. – In 2006 the KING 5 Investigators aired a story about Liza Bautista, a mortgage broker who defrauded people with a pitch about her Christian ways.

While some of Bautista's victims have just settled a lawsuit, they say they're still waiting for justice to be served.

Those victims, including Mary Pelayo, don't understand why Bautista hasn't been charged with any crimes.

Three months after moving into their dream home in Everett, Mary Pelayo's family had to pack up and move out. In a shocker, they found out the home actually belonged to someone else.

"We thought it was our home, we started fixing it up," she said. "We put a lot of money into it, a lot of work. And then to find out it's not ours."

A person they'd never met, Lydia Pagdilao, was stunned as well. Her name was on the title and she'd never even heard of that property.

"I didn't buy any property in Everett," Pagdilao said.

The KING 5 investigators traced the mystery to Bautista, a polished mortgage broker who routinely touted her churchgoing ways, telling clients she's a Christian who likes to help people with rocky credit buy their first home.

Here's how she did it: Bautista brokered legit deals with clients with good credit, like Lydia Pagdilao. Later, when she couldn't get loans for families with credit problems, like the Pelayos, she secretly replaced their paperwork with information she took from the clients with good credit. Using forgeries and manufactured documents, she closed the deals and collected commissions.

We tracked Bautista down in her church parking lot, where we confronted her, saying: "We want to know why are you making people believe that they're buying homes, when it's really not their home?"

Bautista said: "I don't know what you're talking about."

After two years of pain, the Pelayos recently settled a lawsuit for $50,000 against the company Bautista was working for and the escrow company pushing the paperwork through.  

The owner of Action Escrow, Anthony Szabo, kicked us out when we came to ask why they were notarizing forged documents for Bautista's deals.

The settlement is a small measure of justice for the Pelayos.

"We got all our money back, awesome, so excited for that because it was a horrible ordeal and not to mention straining financially," Mary Pelayo said.

But the Pelayos and several other victims say they don't understand why Liza Bautista has not been arrested or charged with any crimes.

"My clients would feel a lot better about justice being done," said attorney Mike Hunsinger, who represented the Pelayos and two other victims.    

"She shattered our lives for a while, and took our money and she's living like a normal person, like nothing happened," Pelayo said. "That's not right."

After our story aired in 2006, federal agencies started looking into Bautista. Their investigation is still ongoing. She's also lost her mortgage broker's license and has filed for bankruptcy.

Bautista is working in retail and is still a leader in her church.

Anthony Szabo's company, Action Escrow,  has closed and he quit the bar association before they disbarred him for practices such as falsely notarizing signatures for real estate deals.