The Pennsylvania Attorney General issued a six-figure fine to the former CEO of ABC Capital, a failed real estate firm behind an $82 million scheme that saw overseas investors snap up hundreds of homes in the city’s poorest neighborhoods — only to be left to rot.
During the 2010s, ABC facilitated the sales of over 1,900 distressed homes billed as “turnkey rental” opportunities to investors in Asia, Europe, and South America. The company promised to purchase, renovate and manage the rentals in exchange for upfront cash, but often reneged — bilking investors out of their money and sometimes stranding tenants in crumbling rental homes.
Tenants rights advocates and law suits from investors later described the business as a “scam” or “Ponzi scheme.”
Attorney General Dave Sunday said, on Tuesday, that former ABC Capital CEO Jason “Jay” Walsh had violated the terms of a 2024 settlement agreement, brought by that office in response to these complaints.
That agreement, which described ABC’s business practices as “deceptive and unfair,” prohibited Walsh from managing and maintaining rental properties in Pennsylvania. But a Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas judge earlier this week ruled that Walsh violated the agreement by continuing to perform “management services for a property he owned,” communicating with tenants, and providing “inaccurate information” to the AG’s office.
Sunday issued a $350,000 fine in response.
“We are grateful that the Court recognized blatant breaches of this agreement, and imposed a serious penalty against Mr. Walsh,” Attorney General Sunday said, in a prepared statement. “We will continue to hold Mr. Walsh accountable under this agreement that clearly prohibits him from managing properties in the Commonwealth.”
Walsh could not be reached for comment. His attorney did not immediately respond to requests for information or comments.
Walsh’s crumbling empire was chronicled in 2022 reports by The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Baltimore Banner. His company decamped to the latter city as rising property values made the city of Brotherly Love less attractive to investors seeking cheap real estate.
But during the 2010s, ABC facilitated more than $82 million in property sales involving 600 different companies in Philadelphia alone, Inquirer reporting showed. Walsh and his partners — Israeli expats Yaron Zer and Amir Vana — later faced numerous lawsuits filed by investors alleging the company left units unfinished or fell far short of promised 40% returns on investment, leaving them saddled with debt.
Some of the homes that were ostensibly renovated, leased or managed by ABC eventually became uninhabitable, either due to shoddy work or poor maintenance, according to tenants, investors and the AG.
“It’s almost always in poor communities, with high rates of people of color,” Karla Cruel, a former staff attorney at Tenant Union Representative. Network, told the Inquirer in 2022. “But they were screwing over the tenants and the investors at the same time. It was just a big old scam.”
Last September, Walsh was convicted of acting as an unlicensed contractor in Baltimore and ordered to pay $20,500 in restitution, the Banner reported — the only criminal action brought against him to date.
The Pennsylvania civil settlement — brokered by PA AG Michelle Henry in 2024 — banned Walsh and his wife, Blanca, from acting as landlords without the use of a third party property manager. The duo, who appeared to have decamped to Aruba by 2024, were also not to have any contact with tenants for a period of 25 and 15 years, respectively.
But court filings show that Walsh violated that agreement by continuing to directly lease out and manage two properties not far from the company’s defunct headquarters in Northern Liberties.
One was his former residence, and another was a property he acquired under the moniker Nolo Investments LLC. Walsh had reported to the AG that while he and his wife co-owned both properties, they were managed by an outside company called “My Mega Realty.”
While Walsh did discuss such an arrangement, the company’s owner said he never completed the deal. Former tenants also reported to the AG that Walsh and his wife were directly managing the property and collecting rent.