Gillette real estate agent faces forgery, identity theft accusations

GILLETTE - A Gillette Realtor and owner of 1st Class Realty has been accused of forging signatures of three local real estate agents and using their identities to close deals without their knowledge, allegedly gaining her higher shares of higher commission rates.

Tami L. Hinson, 57, waived her preliminary hearing Tuesday, binding her over to District Court on six felonies: three counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information and three counts of forgery, according to court documents.

Each count carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison, a $10,000 fine, or both.

She's accused of claiming more than $11,000 in commissions from three deals made by falsifying documents and signatures.

She allegedly added Gillette real estate agents Michael "MG" Stellpflug, Chad Freidt and Will Collier as selling agents, who represent buyers, to contracts on the sale of foreclosed homes to increase the commission rates.

Although she made her appearance in Circuit Court last week, the Gillette Police Department investigation into the allegations began in May, and the earliest alleged incident dates back to 2017.

Stellpflug, a local Realtor and former 1st Class Realty employee, reported to police in early May that Hinson had used personal information and signatures of local real estate agents to gain higher commission rates for herself on foreclosed properties, according to an affidavit of probable cause signed by police detective Alan Stuber.

The alleged scheme involved transactions with PennyMac Loan Services on foreclosed homes. Hinson served as the listing agent on the deals in question, and represented the side of the seller.

Per the agreement with PennyMac, the total commission on the deal would be higher if there were separate listing and selling agents, and lower if Hinson represented each party.

She's accused of adding and removing the other agents' names without their knowledge, then replacing them with her own name after the deals closed, allegedly receiving the commission the other agents would have been owed. The total commission from those deals would have increased with two separate agents listed on the deal, instead of just Hinson.

During the investigation, the multiple listing service, or MLS, showed an August 2017 contract put together by Hinson for the $296,000 sale of 703 Kimber Court in Gillette, with Freidt named as the buyer's agent. With a 6% commission split between the two agents, Freidt would have been owed $5328, according to the affidavit.

The 6% total rate was higher than it would have been had Hinson been the agent on both sides.

Freidt told police he had never worked with the buyer on that deal, and upon reviewing documents from the sale, said the signature appeared to be his, but that he had never completed any of that paperwork. He said the other details handwritten onto the document were not in his handwriting, according to the affidavit.

Freidt told the News Record that the signature was made in pen, and although it resembled his, he was certain he did not sign the document. The other two signatures were made electronically, according to the affidavit.

"I know for a fact I didn't sign that page," he told the News Record. "I didn't even know that sale had even happened until several years later."

Another deal in March 2018 was allegedly prepared by Hinson for the $130,000 sale of 115 Timothy Street. The MLS listed Stellpflug representing the buyer, and Hinson as the listing agent, according to the affidavit.

Stellpflug accessed the documents for the sale and found that his electronic signature had been used. He denied ever signing the document or having any part of the sale. He said he never received the $2,484 commission that would have been owed to him, according to the affidavit.

In April 2020, Hinson allegedly prepared a contract for the sale of 656 Lakeland Hills Drive for $287,000. The MLS named Collier as the agent representing the buyer. He denied to police that he had ever received the $3587.50 commission owed to the agent representing the buyer for the sale.

Collier told police he couldn't remember using his electronic signature and denied ever taking part in the sale, according to the affidavit.

When Stuber met with Hinson in May, he presented the three contracts in question. She told him that all three agents were no longer with the company when the contracts closed, according to the affidavit.

"As the broker, I have the right to do anything I want with the information," she said, according to the affidavit.

Stuber said that she was unable to provide paperwork showing the termination dates for the three agents, according to the affidavit.

She told Stuber that Freidt was the only one with any "validity," adding that he was added as a buyer's agent because otherwise she would receive less commission, according to the affidavit, calling it a "paperwork thing."

"The only thing that's valid is PennyMac, they may not have been the agent, and we truly may have used another inside agent, even if I sold it, to keep the foreclosure company from reducing what they pay us for doing the same job," Hinson told Stuber, according to the affidavit.

By the end of the interview, Stuber said that Hinson changed her story, and said that she had permission from Freidt and Collier to use their names to sign off on the deals, according to the affidavit.

Stuber asked her if Freidt and Collier knew their names were used, to which she replied, "Yes, and they probably even signed the stuff themselves cause I've never forged anyone's signature on anything," according to the affidavit.

Collier told the News Record that he didn't leave 1st Class Realty until the fall of 2020, months after the deal in question closed.

"That's a bald-faced lie," he told the News Record about Hinson's claim that he had left the company before the deal closed.

Hinson did not return a message left requesting comment by the time of publication.