Broker jailed for 11 years for hotel transaction fraud
The president of a hotel brokerage is beginning a 11-year prison sentence in the US after being found guilty of a multi-million dollar fraud involving the sale of several hotels.
Robert Timothy Koger, 48, of Virginia was found guilty of the illegal ‘flipping’ of hotels using straw buyers, extortion and operating a Ponzi scheme, which defrauded clients out of a total of $55 million.
Court records show that Koger defrauded Host Hotels and Resorts out of over $22 million in separate transactions after he was appointed by Host as a broker to sell two of its hotels.
In another fraud, Koger set up a Ponzi scheme to withhold and launder money received from prospective buyers of hotels that were to be held while negotiating with the hotels’ owners.
In a third scheme investigating FBI agents uncovered a plan to extort money from a Pittsburgh hotel owner.
Koger had pleaded guilty earlier this year to the charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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