NCUA Seeks Stay in Growing Legal Morass in Florida

FT. MYERS, Fla. – NCUA asked a federal court yesterday to delay court action in a growing number of suits against three failed credit unions sunk by their involvement in a Florida land speculation. In a motion filed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, NCUA, the conservator for Norlarco CU and Huron River Area FCU, asked for an additional 45-day stay of suits brought against the two credit unions because NCUA only took control of Colorado’s Norlarco on July 26, three months after the state of Colorado had secretly taken over the state’s eighth-largest credit union. Thousands of investors have filed suit in both state and federal court claiming the two credit unions, as well as Denver’s New Horizons Community FCU, engaged in a multi-million-dollar land swindle called Millionaire University. The investors claim they were fraudulently sold homes with a guarantee of a 14% profit after a year and that the three credit unions provided loans for the swindle. The three credit unions are believed to have as much as $500 million in loans out to the speculation, in the Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres developments, just off the Gulf of Mexico.