HGTV Star of Flip It to Win It Sentenced to Four Years in Jail

<p>A former HGTV star was sentenced to four years in jail and ordered to pay back close to &dollar;10 million for committing real estate and financial fraud against 11 victims&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Charles &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Todd” Hill&comma; 58&comma; of Los Gatos&comma; star of &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Flip It to Win It”&comma; was remanded to jail last week&period; The show’s concept was that he bought dilapidated homes&comma; fixed them up&comma; and then sold them for a profit&period; Instead&comma; Hill spent millions on overbudget remodels&comma; laundered profits&comma; and pocketed millions in fraudulently obtained money&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Hill was convicted last year of multiple fraud schemes&comma; including scams perpetrated well before the show&comma; such as a Ponzi scheme&period; Evidence showed that Hill spent the laundered money on a rented apartment in San Francisco&comma; as well as hotels&comma; vacations&comma; and luxury cars&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Some see the huge amount of money in Silicon Valley real estate as a business opportunity&comma;” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Others&comma; unfortunately&comma; see it as a criminal opportunity – and we will hold those people strictly accountable&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Hill was indicted in November 2019&comma; after a DA Investigation showed that he had committed multiple frauds against multiple victims&period; On September 27&comma; 2023&comma; he was convicted by plea of grand theft against all victims and admitted the aggravated white-collar enhancements&period; He was ordered to pay back restitution in the amount of &dollar;9&comma;402&comma;678&period;43 and serve 10 years on probation&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In one case&comma; he diverted construction money for his personal use&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In another instance&comma; he created a Ponzi scheme by taking an investor’s money budgeted to buy homes and&comma; instead&comma; used it to live lavishly&period; To hide the theft&comma; he created false balance sheets and got loans using fraudulent information&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In another case&comma; an investor toured a home for which he had provided &dollar;250&comma;000 for remodeling and found it to be a burnt down shell with no work done on it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Victims who spoke at the hearing said they were still suffering financial and professional damages from the fraud&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;