CINCINNATI — Attorney Greg Berberich met the founders of Vision & Beyond in 2020, when Stas Grinberg and Peter Gizunterman were trying to buy a $2 million apartment building from one of his clients.
Berberich was not impressed by the upstart entrepreneurs, who raised money from Israeli investors to chase bargains in the Cincinnati rental market. Berberich said their contracts were full of spelling errors and they sought multiple delays before the deal fell through.
“They’re wearing $300 Nikes and driving $80,000 cars,” Berberich recalled. “I thought, ‘Who the heck are they?’ As soon as I saw their paperwork, I thought, ‘These guys are amateurs.’”
And yet, two years later, they were able to convince Wall Street bankers to loan them $36 million for dozens of properties they did not own.
Those loans led to criminal charges against Grinberg, while Gizunterman has fled the country. It also led to one of the most complicated civil fraud cases in Hamilton County’s history.
“People have described this as a sophisticated fraud,” Berberich said. “It’s really not, it’s just big. There are a lot of people and properties involved. But, if you can get a notary that’s willing to violate their oath and sign a fraudulent deed, you can sign (over) a property tomorrow.”
The WCPO 9 I-Team has been looking into the Vision & Beyond scandal because of the damage already done. As investors and lenders fight over who owns what pieces of more than 70 Vision & Beyond properties, tenants are battling sewage backups, leaky roofs, mold and utility problems.
But the case also raises questions about the industry’s reliance on notaries and title companies to verify that real estate transactions are legitimate.
In a 38-page lawsuit, Berberich alleges Vision & Beyond used fraudulent deeds to transfer properties away from investors and into limited liability companies that borrowed money in ever-rising amounts.
Berberich said his clients were not aware of the phony deeds because they continued to receive investment payments from Vision & Beyond. Lenders weren’t aware because a title company failed to check with his investors whether they consented to a 2021 deed, signed by Grinberg.
“Some of the more careful title companies, and in fact, in Cincinnati I would say most of them, would require a sign off from all of the members of the LLC saying it’s OK to transfer that property out,” Berberich said. “That didn’t happen in this case. But if that practice (was) followed, a lot of the transfers would never have happened.”
Watch the full I-Team investigation in the video player below:
How it happened
Berberich’s account of the fraud is consistent with details revealed in a criminal complaint against Grinberg.
In a March 19 affidavit supporting the complaint, U.S. Postal Inspector Nicole Lutz said Grinberg and Gizunterman double-pledged properties to obtain multiple loans, sold properties without the consent of their investors and conspired with closing agents to conceal information from lenders and investors. She attributed that information to "a person involved in V&B's business dealings," identified only as Witness 1.
Berberich’s complaint takes it a step further by identifying people who allegedly worked with Vision & Beyond to deceive his clients, a group of Jewish investors led by Yuval Mayost of New York and Cincinnatians, David Mizrachi and Ira Younger.
Their company, Mayost Project 16 LLC, formed a joint venture with Vision & Beyond to purchase and renovate an 11-unit apartment building at 1025 Central Ave. Their March 2021 agreement called for the Mayost investors to pay $908,100 for 82% ownership of 1025 Central LLC, while Vision & Beyond would invest $200,000 for an 18% stake.
Together, they agreed to establish a $1 million credit line to pay for renovation expenses. They planned to pay investors, bank debt and Vision & Beyond’s management fee from the building’s operating revenue.
“The concept they were using is tried and true,” Berberich said. “You find investors. You find properties. You do an agreement where you go in and buy the property low, fix it up, renovate it. Cincinnati’s a great market for that.”
But it didn’t exactly work that way, according to Berberich’s lawsuit against Vision & Beyond, one of six now pending before Hamilton County Judge Christian Jenkins.
MayostLawsuit by webeditors on Scribd
The Notary and the Straw Man
“Vision Group apparently had an agreement that was not disclosed to (the Mayost investors) to purchase the property from its owners … and resell it through a straw buyer to 1025 Central for $1,300,000, netting the Vision Group defendants a profit of $773,540,” the lawsuit alleges.
Hamilton County records show the property’s deed was transferred on March 29, 2021 from a California-based company, South Willowbrook LLC, to an Ohio-based company with the same name. The deed was again transferred that same day from the Ohio company to 1025 Central LLC.
Berberich noticed some peculiar things about the transactions.
For example, both transfers were notarized by the same person, Keya Hamilton of Optimal Closing Solutions in West Chester. It’s a name Berberich was surprised to find in many transactions involving Vision & Beyond.
“If you had 30 transfers, you would probably expect to see 15 or 20 different notaries,” Berberich said. “Well, I’m seeing the same notary’s name over and over and over again.”
The I-Team made several attempts to reach Hamilton through her company and at phone numbers and email addresses obtained in public record searches. So far, we've gotten no response.
Berberich’s lawsuit alleges Hamilton’s husband, Jeremy, was the straw man in that 2021 transfer that inflated the price investors paid for 1025 Central.
Hamilton County records show the second transfer was signed by J. Alexander, acting as an authorized signer for the Ohio-based South Willowbrook LLC. Alexander is Jeremy Hamilton’s middle name, according to Butler County voter registration records.
Butler County real estate records show Keya S. and Jeremy A. Hamilton paid $490,000 for a 6,300-square-foot home that doubles as Optimal Closing Solutions’ business address, 7400 Sweetwater Branch. They bought the home from Grinberg, according to a deed transfer that was signed in December 2021 but wasn’t recorded until December 2024.
WIllowbrook Transfer by webeditors on Scribd
The transfers
Berberich’s complaint alleges Keya Hamilton was a “captive” notary, controlled by Vision & Beyond, who “notarized hundreds, if not thousands, of signatures in furtherance of the fraudulent schemes.”
Hamilton County records show Hamilton notarized four deeds transferring ownership of the property at 1025 Central in 2021. Three of them involved the alleged straw man purchase, while the fourth transferred the property away from the Mayost group of investors.
That document was signed on November 7, 2021 by Grinberg, acting as managing member of 1025 Central LLC. It transferred the property to Cincinnati Portfolio Holdings LLC, which was established on November 3, 2021, according a document Hamilton filed with the Ohio Secretary of State.
Berberich said the transfer was fraudulent because Grinberg lacked the authority to sign it.
“He signed it as the managing member, which he was not,” Berberich said. “It required the investor group to sign off on it. But they had a notary that was signing fraudulent documents for them, and she notarized it. So, the recorder’s office would never know that the deed was bad.”
Berberich said his investors weren’t aware of the transfer until November 2024, when Wilmington Trust National Association sued to foreclose on 1025 Central and dozens of other properties owned, controlled or managed by Vision & Beyond.
“The quarterly payments kept coming in,” Berberich said. “Investors just believed that things were operating as they expected.”
1025 Central Transfer by webeditors on Scribd
The loans
After claiming ownership of the apartment building at 1025 Central, Vision & Beyond’s founders pledged the property – along with 34 others - as collateral for an $18 million loan.
The mortgage document was notarized by Keya Hamilton.
The December 23, 2022 document was signed by Grinberg and listed three different LLCs as borrowers. None of them ever owned the property, according to Hamilton County records.
But that didn’t keep the National Title Company from signing off on the loan. The settlement agent was a person familiar to Grinsberg and Hamilton. Records show a woman who signed the closing statement also notarized the 2021 deed transfer in which Grinsberg transferred his Butler County home to Keya and Jeremy Hamilton.
The I-Team isn’t naming the woman because she hasn’t been accused of fraud in any court records.
However, when the I-Team contacted National Title to ask about its involvement with Vision & Beyond, it sent us a February press release in which it announced it was changing its name to Expert Title after being involved in a fraud case.
“Unfortunately, National Title Company, which had served Ohio and Kentucky for nearly 30 years, was recently the victim of fraud involving a former employee and an outside investor,” said the press release. “The leadership team notified local law enforcement, which is currently investigating the matter.”
The press release did not name the former employee, but she is the only person who left the company in the last year, according to the I-Team’s comparison of its current staff listing to an April 2024 list, retrieved from the web crawler, Wayback Machine.
As for the outside investor, the press release did not name Vision & Beyond. But it assured the public that it only had one client that engaged in fraudulent transactions.
“National Title is confident only specific past closings involving this investor were affected,” it said. “Expert title has taken additional steps to strengthen security measures and ensure the integrity of future transactions moving forward.”
Lessons learned
The scope of the alleged fraud startled many in Cincinnati’s commercial real estate sector, including J.J. Harrison, a broker who considered Grinberg and Gizunterman friends.
“I knew them very well,” Harrison said. “Peter came to my (60th) birthday party two Septembers ago.”
Harrison sold the Vision & Beyond partners some of their first local properties. He frequently visited their former headquarters at 24 E. University and stored some of Grinberg’s belongings in his basement.
He thought the founders were building the company the right way, working with investors to build a lasting portfolio.
“I never saw anything dishonest,” Harrison said. “A lot of people, when they start out in the real estate business, are what I call front men, meaning they don’t have any money, or very little money, and they get backers behind them. And so, I know I met a billionaire rabbi early on.”
Harrison had a positive impression of Keya Hamilton, although he “didn’t know her that well” and only met her a few times.
“I never could piece together the exact business relationship that they had,” Harrison said. “I thought it was a little unusual.”'
Based on the allegations that have surfaced in the last few months, Harrison now wonders whether industry reforms are needed to guard against fraudulent transfers of real estate.
“Generally, I’m for less regulation,” Harrison said. “But I’ve talked to some title people. And they were telling me it’s not hard to do.”
Berberich thinks the rules are already in place to catch this kind of fraud. But they weren’t followed by the notary and title company involved.
“It’s really not a systemic failure,” Berberich said. “You can’t prevent people from committing garden variety fraud.”
