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An Athens apartment complex is under foreclosure after its owner was sentenced in mortgage fraud case
By: Amanda Pirani
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB/Report for America) — An Athens apartment complex providing student rentals and low-income housing is under foreclosure after its owner was caught up in a multimillion dollar loan scheme last year.
According to court documents, the mortgage lender for the property is owed over $24 million.
That potential sale is not expected to displace tenants who live in the property under a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Program.
It is not clear how a new owner could affect private-paying tenants. Typically, when a rental property changes hands any preexisting leases must be honored.
New York resident Fredrick Schulman is the managing owner of the limited liability company that owns Campus Heights.
In April 2025, Schulman was sentenced to 12 months and one day in federal prison, as well as nine months of house arrest by the U.S. Department of Justice. He remains incarcerated and is to be released May 17.
He was just one of several real estate investors involved in a scheme that used fraudulent documents and identity theft to obtain an inflated mortgage for a Cincinnati apartment complex.
In the wake of their crimes, a real estate portfolio associated with the investors, which included Campus Heights, was left in disarray.
Campus Heights is one of many housing projects tied to convicted investors
Companies affiliated with Schulman and co-conspirator Moshe Silber hold equity in over a dozen affordable housing projects in eight states.
Since their legal issues began, those real estate holdings have fallen into poor financial straits as mortgages and unsecured debts matured.
Efforts to financially restructure the companies and obtain bankruptcy protections faced challenges because of Silber and Schulman’s indictments.
In 2024, Schulman and the companies affiliated with Campus Heights defaulted on the property’s mortgage. The lender, M&T Realty Capital Corp., filed a complaint to initiate a foreclosure in March 2025.
The property was placed under a receivership a few months after the foreclosure complaint was made. That’s a legal arrangement in which a third party is given control of a debtor’s (Schulman’s) assets with the goal of repaying the lender (M&T).
The receivership also deals with the property’s operations until a sale is made.
Many of the properties affiliated with Shulman and Silber, including Campus Heights, were involved in bankruptcy cases.
If a company is given Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections, a foreclosure is stopped in order to give the organization time to develop a plan for repayment of its debts.
Dozens of affordable housing projects caught up in the aftermath
As the legal issues played out in the courts, properties affiliated with Schulman and Silber were left in limbo and in some cases, without management. Some already had a history of poor living conditions, according to local news reports.
An apartment complex in Mississippi suffered from code enforcement violations and was ultimately declared a public nuisance last June. In Pennsylvania, a property providing low-income housing also saw public nuisance charges after reports of poor conditions like raw sewage near a school bus stop.
Schulman and Silber faced charges in Pennsylvania for misusing HUD funds meant to improve that apartment complex.
In Tuscaloosa, a lawsuit filed on behalf of residents at Forest Gardens Apartments complained of unsanitary conditions such as mold, mildew and raw sewage coming from sinks.
Court documents from the Campus Heights bankruptcy case suggest the Athens property also deteriorated as the courts determined who should take control of it.
“The Campus Property requires funding for significant repairs, maintenance as well as operating expenses to protect the Campus Property and its residents and maximize M&T’s recovery,” read a motion from M&T’s attorney.
In May of 2025, one resident put her rent in escrow, writing in a letter to the court that her unit’s bedroom had flooded repeatedly without repair. She also worried about the presence of mold in the unit.
A December 2025 inspection by HUD gave the property a score of 48 out of 100. A score of 60 is considered passing.
But the apartment complex has come under criticism for its conditions long before the foreclosure. In 2019, a HUD inspection gave the complex a similarly low score of 51c. The “C” denotes one or more serious life-threatening or fire hazard issues.
Its conditions improved by the next inspection in 2022.
David Browning, a Cincinnati-based commercial real estate expert, is the court-appointed receiver for Campus Heights.
He said the property was already on the road to improvement when it came under his control.
In response to the low HUD inspection score from five months ago, Browning claimed tenants had caused damage to some of their units shortly before the inspection.
Since then, he said issues identified by HUD have been resolved or are actively being addressed.
Elliott McMahon, an Ohio University sophomore who lives at the complex, said that while he didn’t have major concerns with his unit, property maintenance hasn’t been quick to respond to issues.
“I put in a maintenance request at the beginning of my lease in August and they didn’t come around to respond to it for like 3-4 months,” he said.
He received an offer to renew his lease but has opted to leave for a better living situation closer to campus.
It’s a choice tenants living there under project-based vouchers from HUD don’t have.
The vouchers provide low-income housing tied to the apartment complex rather than the tenant. There are pros and cons to different low-income housing programs. Project-based vouchers provide the benefit of not having an expiration tied to them.
But if the tenant moves out, they lose their subsidy because it stays with the unit.
Peggy Lee, a senior attorney for Athens’ legal aid office, said in a conversation about affordable housing in Athens that it’s often a long path for low-income residents to find a place to live.
Getting off waiting lists for public housing and Section 8 vouchers, two other commonly used HUD programs for low income households, can take months or years.
“Unfortunately housing for anybody is so few and far between,” Lee said. “People have to go to other counties sometimes.”
Browning said he is in the process of drawing up a purchase agreement for a buyer. He said he doesn’t believe any voucher residents would be displaced due to the length of the HUD contract with the property.
“This (the foreclosure) is a good thing for the residents, ultimately,” he said.
There are several steps HUD will require before a sale, including approval of the purchaser.
A source familiar with the situation at Campus Heights said 84 units at the complex are currently under contract with HUD through 2042.
However, if the property is sold, a new owner will have to submit a new contract for HUD’s approval before it will make any subsidy payments.
If a new owner cannot meet HUD’s requirements, the federal agency will terminate its contract with the property and provide Section 8 vouchers to residents.
Lee said that generally speaking, a voucher tenant cannot be displaced from their housing without sufficient notice and due process.
HUD did not answer WOUB’s multiple inquiries about the future of voucher housing at Campus Heights in time for the publication of this story.
Amanda Pirani is WOUB’s Report for America Journalist covering Economic Livelihood. For more information about Report for America, you can click here.
Update (4/15/26 11:41 AM): This story has been updated to reflect information from an expert source familiar with the situation at Campus Heights.