A third suspect sought by DeKalb County authorities in connection with a ring that allegedly stole foreclosed million-dollar houses around the metro Atlanta area has been arrested with a trove of evidence, Channel 2 Action News reports.
Matthew Daniel Lowery, 27, was arrested Monday afternoon at the Staybridge Suites Atlanta hotel at 760 Mount Vernon Highway in Sandy Springs.
Investigators said that paperwork, computers and cell phones found in the suspect's hotel room could help them prove their racketeering case against the man and his two alleged accomplices.
“All those are things that you're going to be looking at in establishing a relationship,” DeKalb District Attorney Robert James told Channel 2.
“You need everyone there so you can tie all of the dots together, so that you can show not just individual criminal activity, but you can show a larger scheme taking place,” James said.
On Oct. 4, a DeKalb County grand jury indicted Susan Loraine Weidman on racketeering charges, claiming the Cobb County woman and two men set up an elaborate scheme to seize vacant, foreclosed homes and keep the banks that owned the homes at bay.
Weidman used the courts to claim squatters’ rights, then put fraudulent tenants in homes in well-to-do Cumming, Sandy Springs and Decatur neighborhoods using phony leases while warding off attempts to bounce them with letters threatening litigation, prosecutors alleged.
Indicted with Weidman were Lowery, who supposedly was renting a Forsyth County home, and Ian Justain Greye, a tenant in a Decatur home. All three defendants are jailed without bond.
“It’s not over,” James said of the criminal investigation. “We’re looking at the information we’ve recently received during our last search warrants and we’re making a determination whether or not there are going to be more charges.”
-- Staff writer Marcus K. Garner contributed to this article.
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