An Irving man, 62-year-old Michael Shaub, pleaded guilty to bankruptcy fraud on Tuesday, December 17th, following a lengthy pattern of filing fraudulent bankruptcy petitions in an attempt to avoid foreclosure on a home in the La Villita rea of Las Colinas.
Court documents reveal that Shaub and his spouse purchased a house in Irving, Texas, securing a mortgage loan for the property. Shaub filed his first Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition in January 2012, which was dismissed after failing to make required payments to the Bankruptcy Trustee. Over the next seven years, Shaub filed five more bankruptcy petitions. The last of these was dismissed with prejudice, barring him from filing any further petitions for two years, effective through May 2021.
However, less than five months later, Shaub filed a seventh bankruptcy petition in his wife’s name without her knowledge or consent. The fraudulent petition was dismissed in October 2019. Just two months later, Shaub filed an eighth bankruptcy petition in violation of the court's prior order. This petition was also dismissed, and the court imposed a five-year filing bar, extending through February 2025.
Despite this, Shaub filed a ninth bankruptcy petition in 2022, which was again dismissed with prejudice, resulting in a ten-year ban from filing new bankruptcies, lasting through June 2032. In August 2023, just 14 months later, Shaub filed a tenth bankruptcy petition, which was dismissed the same day.
Shaub now faces up to five years in federal prison for his actions. The FBI’s Dallas Field Office conducted the investigation, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Marty Basu is prosecuting the case.
