LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A Southern Nevada family shared their devastating story with affiliate KLAS after they said a scammer forced their elderly father to lose his home.
“We don’t understand what happened,” Priscilla Lopez-Vargas said.
Lopez-Vargas shared the nightmare she and her family have dealt with since their father fell victim to a life-altering scam.
She told KLAS it all started several years ago when Rodrigo Vargas-Guerra was looking to lower his mortgage payment and met a man at church who said he could help.
“He said he was an attorney, that he was going to help him with the house,” she explained. “And get a loan modification.”
Lopez-Vargas said that the man then convinced her father to send him thousands of dollars and sign a quitclaim deed to transfer the house out of his name.
“He bought the house for his kids,” Lopez-Vargas said. “And for somebody to just come and take it for zero dollars.”
“He contracted him to help him,” Lopez-Vargas said, translating for her father. “Not to take his home away.”
Since then, Lopez-Vargas and her sisters have filed police reports and a civil lawsuit. The man involved now has a warrant out for his arrest.
“We want justice. We want to live a life now that doesn’t depend on us trying to be detectives, attorneys,” Lopez-Vargas said. “We just want to live our lives.”
They have also tried their hardest to keep Vargas-Guerra in his home, but due to legal and financial challenges, the worst happened.
“Last week they foreclosed on my father’s home,” Lopez-Vargas said.
After the foreclosure, the home was then sold off in an auction.
“It’s been so hard, it’s been so hard,” Lopez-Vargas said through tears. The pain that he’s in, the stress, the depression, it’s eating my father alive.”
It’s a scenario no one wants to imagine, but they hope their story, no matter how it ends, will stop this from happening to someone else.
“We need to bring awareness to this case,” Lopez-Vargas concluded.
Vargas-Guerra is still in the home, but the new owners could evict him any day, according to the family.
As for the man behind the scam, documents show the case against him is still open and the family believes he has a history of doing the same thing in other states.
The family has started a GoFundMe to assist Vargas-Guerra. For more information, click HERE.
