Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes
- Ryan Kelly Goodrich, a former title agent operating in Syracuse, was sentenced to prison for stealing over $6.5 million from clients, among other charges.
- His actions impacted at least 22 victims, including homeowners, lenders, and title agencies, court documents say.
- Goodrich was given consecutive prison sentences by Judge Ronald Russell, who highlighted the importance of trust in the real estate industry in his decision.
FARMINGTON — A Syracuse title agent battling seven felony cases across Weber and Salt Lake counties was sentenced to prison Wednesday after admitting to swindling clients out of over $6.5 million.
Ryan Kelly Goodrich, 41, stood silently in 2nd District Court as victims and lawyers discussed what prosecutor Wayne Jones called a "rampage" of criminal activity before he was sentenced to at least three years and up to 40 years in prison.
One Ogden man, Glen Leonard, sold his home to Goodrich and tried to move to Salt Lake City. When Goodrich didn't pay off the mortgage, Jones said Leonard "couldn't even qualify to rent a basic apartment because of his ruined credit. He ended up living in his truck for a time because he had nowhere else to go."
Riley Sorensen tried to deposit a check from Goodrich — payment for his home — at the bank. The check was bad, Jones said, and "bank personnel detained him while the police came, while his children were out waiting in the car."
He's "stolen homes and people's lives and futures and everything that they've worked hard for, for so many years," said Joanna Arbogast.
The Arbogasts said they sold their home to Goodrich and moved out of state in December 2022. When Joanna and her husband Shane began working on their taxes for the year, their previous lender informed them they were months behind on their old mortgage. "We found out Ryan had stolen our home," she said.
"We have three young daughters and a son that's getting ready to go to college, and because of what's happened, we have no savings to send our son to college," Arbogast said tearfully. "He's a liar and a thief. That's all he is."
To recoup losses, Arbogast said she started an online business, only to have Goodrich post negative reviews on her business's Google, Yelp and Facebook pages.
"There's no rehabilitation for a person that's just bad to their core," she told the judge. "And that's what you have here, you have someone that impacted a family once, didn't ever make it right, and they found a way to hurt us again."
Twenty-two victims in total were identified, not just homeowners but lenders and title agencies.
Scott Johnston, an owner of Titan Title Insurance Agency, said, "We rely on each other as title companies, as fiduciaries, to do their job," and they sent money for a home worth $1.6 million, before suspecting something was wrong. When they contacted the family, he said his company realized Goodrich had kept the money and forged the family's signatures on the title, conveying the house to himself.
Goodrich then took out an $850,000 loan on the property, according to charging documents.
"It was just lie after lie after lie," Johnston said. "As a result, our title company is now defending itself civilly, against the underwriter, the lender, and with the ongoing defenses." With the current lull in the title industry, the man said, "Ryan has put us in a position where likely our title company won't make it through this slow time."
Paul Neuenschwander, former president of United Savings Bank and former chairman of the Utah State Real Estate Commission, said he lent Goodrich $300,000 for a house to flip, but the agent kept the money and sold the home to another investor. "I've had a huge amount of experience over the last number of years, and I frankly have never seen anything as egregious as what I got involved with," Neuenschwander said.
"He lied repeatedly to victims about their missing funds. He used fake instruments to try to conceal his crimes from them as long as possible," said Jones. "He repeatedly sent victims fake wire receipts reporting to show transferred funds for transfers that had never happened, all the while giving reassurances."
The tracing of all that money, according to Jones, "has proven vexing." The prosecutor said that of $115 million that moved through Goodrich's trust account over the two years in question, "nearly 20% of the withdrawals were either cash or wires and checks that couldn't be traced due to a lack of supplemental records."
Besides the untraceable withdrawals of almost $23 million, Jones said there were "other large expenditures" that appeared to be consistent with personal spending — almost a million spent at power sports equipment stores though no corresponding asset was ever found, and over $600,000 spent on dining, entertainment and retail shopping.
Court documents from other cases, some of which have not been resolved yet, claim Goodrich was working as an unlicensed contractor, allegedly taking money from clients and never completing the jobs. In four separate cases, some of which were sentenced on Wednesday, Goodrich was charged with retail theft at a Costco and Home Depot in Ogden, a Clearfield Winegars and a Walmart in Clinton.
"It was never my intention to hurt anyone, and it was never my intention to cause financial stress to anyone, either," Goodrich said, reading from a prepared statement. "What I did was not right or fair."
"I am not the person these charges show or the person the last several years show," he said. "I'm a very caring person, and I actually have a huge heart for everyone, which is one of the many reasons I want to get these victims paid back as soon as possible."
The man grew emotional discussing the time he has been away from his five children and family, some of whom submitted letters of support to the court.
Defense attorney Logan Bushell said, "It is mind-blowing, and rampage is putting it lightly, to be honest. ... This is a scenario of greed and greed, pride, ego, desperation and digging himself deeper and deeper and deeper in an attempt to cover it up." But Bushell argued that Goodrich can't work to pay back restitution if he is in prison, and these are nonviolent offenses.
Despite these protests, Judge Ronald Russell handed down prison sentences, to be served consecutively across the four different cases Goodrich pleaded guilty to on Aug. 26.
"In my mind, deterrence, deterring others from similar conduct, is as important a reason for sentencing in this case as any other," Russell said. "You abused your position of trust as a fiduciary in an industry that needs to have credibility."
The judge said that "the home is usually the most important asset most people have. These are grave offenses that occurred over a significant period of time."
For a charge of engaging in construction trade without a license, which was reduced to a class B misdemeanor as part of a plea agreement, Goodrich was ordered to serve 180 days in jail. For issuing a bad check, a third-degree felony, he was sentenced to a prison term of zero to five years.
He pleaded guilty to retail theft, a third-degree felony, and issuing a bad check, a class A misdemeanor, in a separate case, where one charge of issuing a bad check, a third-degree felony, was dropped. He was sentenced to a term of zero to five years in prison for the felony and one year in jail for the misdemeanor.
In the largest of his cases, 17 counts of communications fraud and two counts of unlawful dealing of property by a fiduciary, both second-degree felonies, were dismissed. As part of his plea deal, he admitted to one charge of communications fraud and one charge of pattern of unlawful activity. For each of those felonies, Goodrich was sentenced to terms of one to 15 years in prison.
Because he has already served 175 days in jail, Goodrich is facing 370 days of jail time, to be served in prison, with another two to 40 years on top of that.
Sentencing for three cases in Ogden is scheduled for Oct. 23. Two cases in Salt Lake are also in adjudication.
