Glastonbury Realtor Gets 366 Days In Prison In Short Sale Scheme Case

BOSTON, MA —A real estate agent from Glastonbury was sentenced in federal court in Boston Thursday as part of a multi-year scheme to "defraud his clients by engaging in fraudulent short sales of government and bank-owned properties to straw buyers acting at the direction of the defendant and a co-conspirator," prosecutors said.

Sheldon Haag, 34, of Glastonbury, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Leo T. Sorokin to one year and one day in prison and two years of supervised release. Haag was also ordered to forfeit $277,331 and to pay restitution in an amount to be determined at a later date, prosecutors said.

In June 2023, Haag entered a guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

According to case records, Haag and another real estate agent, James Macchio, used "straw buyers" to acquire properties owned by the clients of a brokerage where they worked, which included banks, federal agencies, bankruptcy trustees and other mortgage holders. The straw buyers included a shell company set up by a co-conspirator as a purported construction company, according to case records.

Haag and his co-conspirators hid their involvement as the de facto buyers of short sale properties from their clients, the owners of the properties, and used their inside knowledge as the owner's broker to minimize sale prices in order to maximize their gain from later "flipping" the properties, according to case records. While perpetrating the "flipping scheme," Haag and his "co-conspirators" further defrauded clients by submitting fraudulent renovation bids from contractors to their own clients, including from the fake construction company they controlled through a "co-conspirator," prosecutors said.

Once their clients accepted a fraudulent bid, Haag and his co-conspirators would hire different contractors at much lower cost and pocket the difference between the fraudulent bid and the actual cost of property repairs, according to case records.

Macchio pleaded guilty in May 2024 and is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 19.