For years, some local families say they've been trying to get the money they thought they were spending on new homes back. Now, after reporting from Sergio Flores with NBC 7 and Telemundo 20 Responds, a special task force is looking into what happened.
"It was $5,000," said Leticia Aquino, who lost money in the program. "We all need $5,000 right now."
Aquino says she's just about given up hope that she'll ever see her money again. She gave it as a down payment to a man who promised affordable housing.
"He made meetings with a lot of people, it wasn't just me," said Aquino. "It was a lot of people and it would be meetings every week."
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Telemundo 20 met up with many of those people back in 2019. They said most of them gave $500 and were told to invite 10 other friends or family members to do the same, but others said they gave $5,500. That's $5,000 for a down payment, and a $500 donation to 10u Veteran, a nonprofit that claimed to support veterans.
Then, the families say their money just vanished.
NBC 7 and Telemundo 20 called the man behind 10u Veteran during our reporting in 2019. He confirmed his name was Hector Benavente, matching the IRS documents, but did not give us permission to record the conversation.
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Instead, he followed up by email, acknowledging he owed the families money, but saying things just didn't work out as planned because of his unexpected personal health issues. Benavente said people would get their money back by the end of 2019, but the families say they never saw it.
"He would say 'Be patient with me, we're really working on it,'" said Aquino.
But then in April of 2021, Aquino says the messages promising eventual payment stopped.
"I texted him and he never replied back," said Aquino. "I tried calling him two or three times, but he never returned my calls."
So we tried to call him up again and left a message, but didn't hear back. We also reached out to the number on his website, but it was no longer in service. The email address he used back in 2019 was also deactivated, and his 10u Veteran organization had its 501(c)3 status revoked by the IRS because they hadn't filed financial reports since 2017.
In 2019, Benavente told us he received about $50,000 through the program, but the families said they think the number is higher based on the number of people they saw handing over money at meetings for a few years.
Two members of the Computer and Technology Crime High-Tech Task Force, also known as CATCH, tell us they are now looking into the case. Their findings will help determine if there will be a full criminal investigation.
"I just hope we can get our money back after all this time," said Aquino.
