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The Indiana Real Estate Commission on Wednesday revoked the real estate license of Jeremy Tucker of Avon, a broker who has been sued dozens of times by investors, lenders and contractors over soured deals.
The action was sparked by an administrative complaint that Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita filed in May. That complaint alleged that Tucker committed 27 counts of fraud or forgery, one count of lewd or immoral conduct for exploiting investors’ trust in him, and one count of failing to associate his real estate license with a licensed broker.
During a commission hearing on the matter Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Chase Haller characterized Tucker’s actions as a “yearslong, multistate loan fraud and property-flipping scheme” that is similar to a Ponzi scheme.
Neither Tucker nor his attorney, Aaron Freeman, were present at the hearing, and neither responded to phone messages left by IBJ later that afternoon.
In sworn testimony given at the commission hearing, one victim said he made $10 million in loans to Tucker that were never repaid. Another man testified that Tucker forged his name on documents for real estate purchases worth a combined $4 million-plus, putting him on the hook for loans he knew nothing about.
Victim Bryan Heim, who lives part-time in the Geist community of Indianapolis and part-time in Florida, said he first met Tucker in January 2022 through a mutual friend. Tucker asked Heim if he wanted to invest with him on some real estate deals. Heim, who said he was retired from a career that included commercial and residential contracting and real estate flipping, said he agreed to extend multiple loans to Tucker in exchange for promissory notes.
Heim said Tucker had been repaying the loans initially, but those payments dried up around the first quarter of 2023. Heim said Tucker still owes him $10 million—money which Heim does not expect to ever receive.
Heim also testified about Amplify Life LLC, an entity that was established in July 2022 and that, Indiana Secretary of State records show, listed Heim as its registered agent. That LLC was administratively dissolved in January, records show.
Heim said that Tucker proposed that the two of them do some “fix and flip” real estate projects together, and that Tucker set up the LLC as the business entity for those projects. But, Heim said, his name was fraudulently signed to numerous documents that were used to purchase properties without his knowledge in the name of the LLC.
“I’m still paying attorneys to fight with these lenders, big or little lenders, for my innocence,” Heim said.
The other victim who testified at Wednesday’s hearing was Rodney “Joey” Gaard, a real estate agent from Fishers.
Gaard said it was in 2018 that he met Tucker, who represented himself as an experienced investor and real estate flipper who was buying low-end homes in Indianapolis that Gaard’s clients might want to purchase.
Over time, Gaard said, his signature was forged on documents for the purpose of taking out loans totaling more than $4 million, and he believes Tucker is the one who committed the forgeries.
“There’s been dozens of cases right now where I found my signature has been forged,” Gaard said.
Gaard said he only learned about the problem when he started getting calls from creditors who claimed he owed them money. He later learned that 72 properties had been fraudulently purchased in his name.
Gaard has been named as a defendant in more than 20 lawsuits concerning those properties, including mortgage foreclosure proceedings. Gaard said he’s been forced to spend many thousands of dollars on legal bills to defend himself, and the entire ordeal has caused mental and financial stress for him and his family.
“It’s a trying time … I hope nobody else goes through this,” Gaard said.
Deputy Attorney General Kelsey McKnight told the Real Estate Commission that she believes the two victims’ experiences represent only a fraction of the actual harm caused by Tucker’s actions, and that total victim losses could be higher than $100 million all told.
“The amount of financial distress caused by [Tucker] on Hoosiers—and, very likely, out-of-state investors—in my opinion, is likely to approach levels of some of the highest-level financial crimes that we’ve heard about in our lifetimes,” McKnight said.
As reported by IBJ in March, Tucker has been a defendant or co-defendant in dozens of real-estate-related civil suits filed in Hamilton, Hendricks, Marion and Shelby counties over the past few years.
Of those cases, 23 were still active as of this week. Many others have since been resolved.
Those complaints come from local and out-of-state plaintiffs who allege they lost money—millions of dollars, in some cases—when the defendants defaulted on loan payments, failed to pay home-repair invoices or committed outright fraud.
Tucker’s brother, Joshua Tucker of Brownsburg, is also a defendant in some of these lawsuits, and both Gaard and Heim testified that Joshua and Jeremy work together.
A commission member at Wednesday’s hearing questioned whether the Attorney General’s Office is also investigating Joshua Tucker, who holds a real estate broker’s license that expires in June, records show.
Haller, the deputy attorney general, declined to answer the question, saying that by statute his office cannot disclose whether or not it is actively investigating a licensee.
IBJ left messages Wednesday afternoon at a phone number and email address believed to be associated with Joshua Tucker but received no response.
In addition to revoking Jeremy Tucker’s real estate license, the Real Estate Commission imposed on him a $29,000 fine—$1,000 for each of the 29 offenses in Rokita’s complaint, and the maximum penalty allowed under Indiana law.
The commission also imposed a conditional requirement for victim restitution. If Tucker were to reapply for a real estate license after a statutory seven-year period, he could only do so after paying restitution to victims who were awarded damages in a court case.
The commission did not specify an amount of damages because many of the civil cases against Tucker are still ongoing.
Tucker had held an unassigned real estate broker’s license that was set to expire on June 30, 2026. An unassigned status means that the broker is not associated with a brokerage and is not actively working as a real estate agent.
Tucker is not associated with Indianapolis-based F.C. Tucker Co.
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