North Texas man pleads guilty to bankruptcy fraud after filing 10 petitions in 12 years
An Irving man pleaded guilty to bankruptcy fraud after filing 10 petitions in 12 years in an effort to avoid foreclosure on his home, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton said in a news release.
Michael Shaub, 62, filed the bankruptcy cases between January 2012 and August 2023.
Shaub will face up to five years in federal prison, Simonton said.
Shaub and his spouse purchased a house in Irving with a mortgage loan secured by their ownership interest in the property, according to court documents.
He filed a Chapter 13 voluntary bankruptcy petition, which was dismissed without prejudice for failing to timely pay the bankruptcy trustee as specified in the debtor’s plan, in January 2012, the release stated.
An additional five bankruptcy petitions were filed over the next seven years. The last of those were dismissed with prejudice, which prohibited him from filing any more bankruptcies for two years, until May 2021.
Shaub filed a seventh bankruptcy petition under his wife’s name without her knowledge or consent, less than five months after the dismissal, the release stated.
“The fraudulent petition — which Shaub admitted was intended to circumvent the court order prohibiting him from filing bankruptcies for two years — was dismissed without prejudice in October 2019,” Simonton said in the news release.
Shaub filed an eighth bankruptcy petition about two months after that dismissal, violating the order barring him from filing through May 2021.
“In that petition, in response to a question asking whether he had filed any bankruptcies within the last eight years, Mr. Shaub listed only one of his bankruptcies and not the bankruptcy that resulted in the order barring him from filing.” Simonton said.
In February 2020, a month after the eighth petition was filed, the Bankruptcy Court dismissed it with prejudice and barred Shaub from filing any more bankruptcies for a period of five years, until February 2025.
Shaub filed a ninth bankruptcy, which was also dismissed with prejudice. The court barred Shaub from filing any bankruptcies for a period of 10 years, through June 2032.
Fourteen months later, in August 2023, Shaub filed his 10th bankruptcy petition, which was dismissed with prejudice the same day.
The FBI’s Dallas Field Office conducted the investigation.
This story was originally published December 17, 2024 at 8:20 PM.