Elizabeth Warren accused of making a fortune from flipping foreclosed homes

Harvard professor and U.S. Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren is back in the headlines after it was revealed that she took part in around 12 lucrative real estate deals using manoeuvres such as ‘flipping’ properties to make profits.



Warren has in the past rallied against predatory banks and heartless foreclosures but that didn’t stop her using the controversial tactics to make fortunes.

On her website she writes: ‘We are in the midst of one of the greatest economic crises in our country’s history — a crisis that began one lousy mortgage at a time'.

Lucrative: Warren has in the past rallied against predatory banks and heartless foreclosures but that didn¿t stop her using the controversial tactics to make fortunes

'Flipped': Elizabeth Warren purchased this Oklahoma City home at 200 NW 16th Street for $30,000 in August 1993, then sold it for $145,000 five months later

She criticises ‘a deregulated credit industry (that) squeezed families harder, hawking dangerous mortgages.’



But the college professor was herself an active player in the real estate market in the 19990s, buying and selling properties at steep mark-ups across her home city of Oklahoma, land records show.

She loaned money to relatives at high interest rates and paid bargain prices for foreclosed properties.



FLIPPED PROPERTIES

Elizabeth Warren bought a foreclosed house for $61,000 in June 1993 and sold it in December 1994 for $95,000, a 56 per cent mark-up. She paid $30,000 for a property in August 1993 and sold five months later for £145,000, a 383 per cent gain. Warren lent her brother $25,000 for a property in 1994 that was sold at a mark-up of 68 per cent for $42,000 in 1998.

She gave her sister-in-law a mortgage for a $31,000 home in 1996 which she made 45 per cent on, selling it three years later for $45,000. In 1997 she provided him with the funding to buy a $90,000 house which sold for $106,000 two years later and another costing $26,000 which he sold after nine years for $45,000. She gave him money to buy a $35,000 home in August 2000. He sold it after 75 days for $35,000, a 10 per cent gain.

One such property she bought for $30,000, then sold for $145,000 five months later, a 383 per cent mark-up.



Warren typically gained between 10 and 73 per cent on her sales, netting hefty profits.



In a statement issued on Saturday her campaign wrote: ‘Elizabeth and (her husband) Bruce are fortunate to be in a position where they can help their family.



'They have been able to help relatives buy their homes and her nephew — a contractor — fix up houses.’

The revelations, brought about by a Boston Herald review, come days after the professor finally admitted that she told officials at Harvard University and other colleges that she was a Native American.



The U.S. Senate hopeful, who has been heavily criticised for claiming a Native American ancestry without any proof, confirmed that she told Harvard and University of Pennsylvania leaders that she was a minority when she worked there.

The Democratic candidate said in a statement that she provided ancestry details only after she had been hired as a faculty member.

The Harvard Law School professor previously acknowledged that she had allowed herself to be listed as a minority in a national directory of law school faculty.



'At some point after I was hired by them, I also provided that information to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard,' Warren said. 'My Native American heritage is part of who I am, I'm proud of it and I have been open about it.'

Land records: The college professor was an active player in the real estate market in the 19990s, buying and selling properties at steep mark-ups across her home city of Oklahoma

Warren grew up in Oklahoma and has provided no documentation of the ancestral claims. She has said her heritage is part of family lore.

Warren is running for the Massachusetts Senate seat held by Republican Scott Brown.

In the statement, Warren said her mother and other family members frequently mentioned the family's Native American heritage as she grew up.

She said: 'As a kid, I never thought to ask them for documentation - what kid would? - but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a part of who I am and part of my family heritage.'

Details: Warren said she told leaders at Harvard (pictured) and the University of Pennsylvania that she was a minority only after she was hired as faculty

The statement was released as The Boston Globe reported on Thursday that documents obtained from Harvard's library show its law school first reported a Native American female professor in federal statistics in 1992, when Warren was a visiting professor.



She returned to Penn before returning to Harvard Law School as a tenured professor in 1995, when the school resumed its listing of a Native American faculty member, the Globe reported.



Warren previously has said she was unaware that Harvard had listed her as a minority until she learned of it in a report in the Boston Herald last month.



The Democratic candidate noted in her statement that people involved in recruiting her for teaching jobs have stated that they were unaware of her claims of Native American heritage, including Harvard Law School professor Charles Fried. Fried served as U.S. Solicitor General in the Reagan administration and has said he voted for Brown for Senate in 2010.

'Who I am': Warren said her family members (pictrued) frequently mentioned the family's Native American heritage as she grew up

'Documents that reporters have examined also show I did not benefit from my heritage when applying to college or law school,' she said.



In a separate statement on Thursday, Warren demanded an apology from Brown for what she claimed was an attack on the integrity of her parents, the late Don and Pauline Herring.



During a visit on Thursday to Springfield, Brown again called on Warren to release her employment records. Asked about her claim that she learned about her Native American ancestry from her mother, The Republican newspaper quoted Brown as responding: 'My mom and dad have told me a lot of things, too, but they're not always true.'



Warren said her parents should be left out of the campaign.

Claims: Warren's great-great-great grandfather is supposedly Cherokee, but other details show the ancestor rounded up Cherokees for the Trail of Tears

'Scott Brown's comments about my parents are totally out of line,' she said. 'I resent him questioning their honesty. My mother and father are not here to defend themselves and should be off limits.'

Warren's great-great-great grandfather is supposedly Cherokee. One genealogist has found evidence to suggest that the longtime law professor is 1/32 Cherokee, according to the Globe.

The ancestor was not married to a Cherokee but actually rounded them up for the Trail of Tears, it has been claimed.

But the Senate hopeful has dismissed the embarrassing reports as 'politics as usual.'

The denial comes after an article on Breitbart.com claimed Warren's ancestor Jonathan Crawford was a member of the Tennessee Militia who rounded up Cherokees from their family homes.

Authentic?: Warren has also been accused of plagiarizing her 'Cherokee' recipes (pictured) in the book Pow Wow Chow from the New York Times

He then apparently herded them into government-built stockades at Ross's Landing, the starting point of the Trail of Tears - along which as many of 6,000 Native Americans died - in January 1837.

Warren was recently in hot water after other allegations surfaced that she plagiarized her 'Cherokee' recipes in the book Pow Wow Chow from the New York Times and other publications.



The 1984 cookbook Pow Wow Chow was edited by Mrs Warren's cousin Candy Rowsey and is billed as a collection of recipes from the Five Civilized Tribes.



Mrs Warren's recipes are featured alongside her mother's directions for sugar cake and her two children's recipe for peach cobbler.

Campaign: Warren (right) demanded an apology from her opponent, U.S. Senator Scott Brown (left) for comments he made about Warren's parents



Mrs Warren's recipes include herbed tomatoes and a crab with tomato mayonnaise dressing, among other dishes.

But it appears that at least three of the five recipes featured in the book were fakes, according to an investigation by radio talk show host Howie Carr.

The two recipes for Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing and Cold Omelets with Crab Meat appear to be word for word copies of a French chef's design.