Last week, we learned that one of Donald Trump’s biggest and loudest African-American supporters, Mark Burns, is a bald-faced liar and a fraud. Well, Crooks and Liars recently discovered evidence that one of Trump’s other prominent minority surrogates is also a fraud. Namely, Latinos for Trump founder Marco Gutierrez, best known for warning the nation that only a Trump presidency can stop taco trucks from parading into this country en masse.
According to Gutierrez’ LinkedIn profile, he has worked in various facets of the real estate industry for most of the last two decades. After working as a loan officer and relationship manager, he struck out on his own to found Hidalgo Properties, a full-service real estate company, in 2001. He folded this company in 2007, and two years later founded Pepito International, a credit repair and foreclosure prevention firm.
Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, a nonprofit law firm that fights real estate abuses, got to know Gutierrez well before he wrung his hands about taco trucks on every corner. In its 2014 annual report, HERA revealed that Gutierrez took a woman’s car as the first installment on a $16,000 payment for a loan modification. However, he never changed the registration, dinging the victim for hundreds of dollars in unpaid tickets.
With HERA’s help, the woman complained about Gutierrez’ scam. Gutierrez’ response was to sue both the woman and a HERA staffer. Sound familiar? Rather than pay people who do work for him, Trump takes them to court and relies on his far superior financial resources to force them to either settle for pennies, walk away, or go out of business.
Fortunately, this woman got a measure of justice. HERA discovered that Gutierrez had a history of using the courts to “bully vulnerable residents across several counties” who did business with him. He was able to force some of them to pay money they didn’t owe, and bludgeon others into silence when they complained about his practices. Not only did HERA win the case, but it persuaded a California judge to declare Gutierrez a vexatious litigant. As a result, Gutierrez is barred from representing himself in any action before any court in California without first seeking permission from the court.
California real estate regulators also know Mr. Taco Trucks very well. In 2011, Gutierrez and his wife, Jennifer, were called on the carpet for taking money from a man in Tracy, near Stockton, that was intended to help him keep his home and use it to pay the Gutierrezes’ cell phone and cable bills. As a result, the Gutierrezes were banned from engaging in any activities that required a real estate broker’s license, though they didn’t have their licenses yanked altogether.
Just like his hero, Gutierrez has a lengthy file of bankruptcies. In 2014, a former employee at Hidalgo Properties, Irene Macias, revealed that Gutierrez once told her how he gamed the bankruptcy court system.
“During the time I was working with [Debtors] they explained to me how they were using the bankruptcy court to prevent foreclosure on their home and to prevent other collection efforts, since they had no money. Mrs. Gutierrez explained to us that the way they were preventing a foreclosure was by filing for bankruptcy and then not following up on a legal requirement and the case would be dismissed. She explained to us that sometimes there was a three month period between the filing and the dismissal and that interfered with the foreclosure.”
At the time, Gutierrez had filed for bankruptcy 14 times. Based on what his wife told Macias, a good number of them were fraudulent.
Gutierrez makes no secret of how much he admires Trump. Well, it looks like he’s trying to emulate Trump too well–he’s become every bit as shady as his hero, and possibly even shadier.
