For two years, Carl Avinger had forged signatures and filed fake deeds to steal homes in some of the wealthiest parts of Queens.
The scheme eventually fell apart, as such schemes do: Investigators at the Queens district attorney’s office discovered it and charged Mr. Avinger and three accomplices on March 18 with theft and fraud. The case, it seemed, was destined to trundle through the courts like thousands of other real estate crimes in New York City.
Then came a phone call from Tennessee.
Mr. Avinger, the caller told prosecutors on March 27, was not Mr. Avinger at all. In fact, the caller said that he was the real Carl Avinger, and the accused man — whom the caller knew only as Ace — had stolen his name, birth date and Social Security number 22 years before.
Investigators confirmed that the caller was actually Carl Avinger and that the defendant was not. Nor was he Carl E. Avinger, John Stamp, Bobby Jackson, Craig Taylor, Graig Taylor, Anthony S. Williams, Kevin C. Windley, Kevin Windleg, Corey Blake Duncan, Marco Ferrari, Marco Ferrare, Elvis Taylor or Elvis Teller — names he had used to commit dozens of crimes across the city, on Long Island and as far away as Oklahoma over the last three decades, according to court, jail and prison records, and internal Police Department documents obtained by The New York Times.
In the months that followed, Melinda Katz, the Queens district attorney, and her prosecutors from the housing bureau unearthed more information about the man whose roughly half-century life had been defined by deceit. But there was one fact they had yet to discover: his name.
Bobby, John and Marco
The man began his criminal career in New York City in 1992 as Elvis Teller.
He was 16 — or so he told the police — and was arrested six times that year, including once for burglary in Manhattan.
Over the next decade, he was arrested 29 more times in the city, his various identities later connected by comparing mug shots and fingerprints. He was 18-year-old Bobby Jackson accused of reckless endangerment; he was 26-year-old Marco Ferrari charged with grand larceny; he was 16-year-old John Stamp, charged with attempted murder while stealing a vehicle in Brooklyn.
The man was convicted in November 1995 for assault and weapons possession and served two years in prison, only to be locked up again for violating the conditions of his release.
He cycled in and out for five more years. During one prison stint, in February 2002 at Queensboro Correctional Facility, the man met a fellow inmate named Dwayne Avinger, Carl’s older half brother.
What happened next, Carl — the real Carl — said in an interview, upended his life.
Dwayne Avinger told the man about his family in Greensboro, N.C., and their five-bedroom house. On April 7, 2003, after another release, another parole violation and another incarceration, the man was let out and needed a place to stay.
Carl and Dwayne’s mother had died two weeks before. But their mourning was interrupted when Carl, then 20, learned Dwayne had told his prison buddy he could stay in the house. Carl’s younger brother had also agreed.
Carl confronted his younger brother: “I’m not going to allow a stranger to stay in my mama’s house. I don’t care who says what, he is not welcome inside mama’s house.”
“You don’t know who this dude is,” Carl said, growing angrier. “You don’t know who you are dealing with.”
Still, the man showed up.
Carl told him to leave; the man refused.
When the man saw Carl’s wallet unattended in the house, he swiped it, Carl said. Inside were Carl’s high school ID, driver’s license, Social Security card and roughly $100.
Months later, the man moved out, taking Carl’s identity with him.
Becoming Avinger
The first time the man is known to have tried out his new name was on Feb. 7, 2006, when he and a friend were arrested during a traffic stop about 100 miles outside Oklahoma City.
The man was driving a Dodge minivan when a state trooper pulled him over for veering into the wrong lane. The man, who was shaking, told the trooper that he was 23-year-old Carl E. Avinger of Knoxville, enrolled in school in Tennessee. The E was for Edward.
When the trooper peered into the van, he saw a discarded marijuana stem, and the authorities found 51 pounds of the pot wrapped in cellophane. The man was charged with drug trafficking, but prosecutors quickly discovered that he was not Mr. Avinger.
They charged him with false impersonation under one of his most common aliases: John Stamp, now supposedly 33. The man served three years in prison until he was released on parole.
By January 2011, he was back in New York. He was arrested 15 times in the city between 2011 and 2022 on various charges: driving with a revoked or suspended license; drunken driving; intimidating a victim or witness. In the few cases that are not sealed, the man was either Marco Ferrari or Carl Avinger.
As the years passed, his rap sheet grew. That criminal history also affected the real Carl, making it hard for him to lease an apartment or land a job. On paper, and in the eyes of the government, the men were one and the same.
It was under Carl’s name that the man began to carry out his most elaborate scheme yet.
Autumn in New York
In 2023, prosecutors say, Autumn Valeri became the man’s right-hand woman.
She was a vice president at Fave Realty Inc., a firm based in New York, and she oversaw the company’s office in East Northport, N.Y. She stood out: Fitted leather pants; ribbed black turtlenecks; red lipstick; pointed-toe stilettos; large sunglasses; and manicured nails were a part of her look.
She had a reputation for closing big deals on midsize homes in desirable neighborhoods, particularly on Long Island and in Queens. At least once, according to a social media post, she earned a $25,000 commission on a single sale.
Their scam, which is set out in court documents, a lawsuit, property and building records and papers filed with the state’s Division of Corporations, went like this: The man, Ms. Valeri and two accomplices found vacant houses and filed fake deeds with the city claiming to be the owners. Then, they transferred those deeds to shell companies they controlled. They impersonated notaries, too, approving the transfers so that the homes could be resold for a profit.
The third time they did it was their undoing.
It happened in Kew Gardens Hills, where a mother and her 52-year-old daughter had owned a home since 1997. On April 25, 2023, the man and Ms. Valeri forged their signatures, filed a fake deed and transferred the document to a shell corporation.
On May 31, that company flipped the house for $600,000. The sale was registered with the city nine days later. Only then did mother and daughter receive notice that their home had been stolen and sold. They reported the fraud in June 2023 to the Queens district attorney.
Rachel Stein, a prosecutor and deputy chief of the housing bureau, began to investigate.
By January 2024, the man was living in a house in the St. Albans neighborhood of Queens, according to public records. It stood out among the row of prewar, half-timbered homes: Nearly every red brick was painted black; security cameras were installed; blackout curtains covered the windows; and a towering metal roll-up gate was erected in the alleyway, blocking the backyard from view.
Around that time, Ms. Valeri became pregnant with the man’s son.
The family was together for about 14 months when Ms. Stein and her colleagues brought the case before a grand jury, which indicted the man, Ms. Valeri and the accomplices on 47 counts of grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, conspiracy and other crimes.
On March 18, the defendants were arraigned in Queens Criminal Court, where they pleaded not guilty.
When the man went before the judge, he introduced himself as Carl Avinger.
Ace Resurfaces
Roughly 750 miles away, the real Carl went online and searched for himself — a habit he had developed ever since the man had stolen his identity. He had first realized that had happened around 2005 when he started receiving mail from companies offering him debt relief. He filed several police reports over the years, but to no avail.
The search returned results he did not expect: news articles about a real estate scam in Queens and a fraudster named “Carl Avinger.”
Carl saw a photograph of man’s face. It was the guy he knew as Ace.
Prosecutors spoke to Carl on March 27 and soon determined that he was telling the truth. They jailed the man.
But if the defendant was not Carl Avinger, who was he?
Ms. Stein asked the question in court. During a hearing on April 21, the man’s defense attorney, Milton Florez, told the judge that the man said his real name was Craig Taylor. Mr. Florez said that, according to the man, his mother was Margaret Curtis.
Prosecutors tracked down Ms. Curtis, whose name was now Margaret Forbes of Texas. Curtis, the woman said, had been her married name.
Ms. Forbes claimed she was the man’s mother and his name was not in fact Craig Taylor — it was, she said, Angelo Alexander Forbes. Ms. Forbes told investigators her son was born on Jan. 13, 1976, in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas.
So far, prosecutors have not been able to confirm whether that is true, or part of another ruse.
A Cipher in the Dock
On the morning of Oct. 8, officers in Queens Supreme Court led the man to the defense table.
In August, he had pleaded guilty to stealing Carl’s identity. On those charges, he will spend three and a half to seven years behind bars. Now he had returned from jail on Rikers Island to plead to other charges: one count of first-degree grand larceny and two counts of second-degree grand larceny. For those crimes, he faces up to nine years in prison.
At the back of the small sixth-floor courtroom sat Ms. Valeri, who had come to plead guilty herself. She lost her real estate license and got five years of probation.
Her lips were pursed, her eyes fixed on the man: a bald, 5-foot-4 prisoner in a white sweater, khaki pants and black sneakers hunched over the wooden table as court officers removed the handcuffs behind his back.
He was the father of her boy, now a year old, and Ms. Valeri did not even know his name.
Before the proceeding, the judge, Leigh K. Cheng, called Mr. Florez and Ms. Stein to the bench.
So, the judge said, are we planning to charge this man as “Mr. Avinger,” and list his aliases? Do we know his name?
“No,” Ms. Stein said. “He’s not going to admit it.” She added, “It is what it is.”
Justice Cheng ticked through the parameters of the plea deal. The man, appearing bored, mumbled that he understood. He picked up a pen to sign the paperwork, then wiped his face with his hand.
When the hearing concluded, the man stood and grinned. He turned to Mr. Florez and gave him a fist bump. He never looked back at the mother of his child.
The court officers put the man in handcuffs and led him out of the room. He is expected to be sentenced on Wednesday as John Doe.
Chelsia Rose Marcius is a criminal justice reporter for The Times, covering the New York Police Department.
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