Following the collapse of a massive portfolio of Baltimore rowhomes, the mayor’s office, lenders and even the FBI took notice. A small group of investors from New York had orchestrated what industry insiders called a complex real estate financing scheme.

A new lawsuit filed in Baltimore Circuit Court accuses the same investors of a hustle even more brazen: stealing homes.

Last spring, the empire built by Benjamin Eidlisz with Eluzer Gold was unraveling. Two of their companies were going bankrupt under the weight of tens of millions of dollars in past-due mortgages.

That’s when Eidlisz sold 11 rowhouses to Gold, transactions that property records show allowed them to tap private credit for an additional $1.7 million in loans right before several Wall Street firms cut them off.

There was just one problem, according to the lawsuit: Eidlisz didn’t own the 11 homes.

Eidlisz sold them to Gold using fictitious documents that asserted he was a representative of the two limited-liability companies that actually owned them, according to the lawsuit. At least five of the properties are now in foreclosure.

Gold and Eidlisz have not filed a response to the lawsuit, which was filed by the two LLCs.

Gold did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Neither did attorneys affiliated with him in the past.

Eidlisz, reached by phone, declined to comment beyond calling the lawsuit “irrelevant” and an “internal dispute” that already had been resolved.

The 11 rowhouses in question are spread across the city, with one cluster concentrated in Southwest Baltimore. Some of the people renting them said they had no knowledge of the legal dispute.

“There’s got to be some bulls--- with this,” said Michael Moore, a tenant at one of the homes in Carrollton Ridge.

He said he learned from a TikTok video that the house he has lived in for about six years is entangled with the New York investors.

A veteran and young father studying to become a paramedic, Moore said he hoped to stay in his house, which is not one of the five actively in foreclosure, for at least a while longer.

Last spring, Moore said, his property manager at Pay Your Rent Property Management LLC offered to sell him the home he rented for about $50,000. He turned it down, saying it wasn’t worth the price.

Around the same time, according to the complaint, Gold “bought” the home for $200,000 from Eidlisz using what the lawsuit says are fabricated real estate records.

A review of public land records shows that the Pittsburgh-based investment firm Omicelo owns the properties through Pigtown Portfolio LLC and East Baltimore Investments II LLC, the plaintiffs that filed the lawsuit.

Maryland business records show no recent changes in ownership for those LLCs, yet last year Eidlisz signed 11 deeds of sale claiming to be their owner. He sold the properties to Gelt Ventures LLC, which lists Gold as its legal representative.

Title companies typically verify property ownership before a settlement takes place. Towson-based Rextar Title Co., which is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, handled the paperwork for the 11 home sales, as well as for hundreds of other real estate transactions in the New Yorkers’ Baltimore portfolio.

Geoff Genth, an attorney for Rextar, declined to comment.

Gold’s lenders, the California-based Cake Mortgage Corp. and the Florida-based Champions Funding LLC, are named as defendants in the lawsuit. Neither responded to requests for comment.

An attorney for the plaintiffs, Ian Valkenet, said the case was ongoing. He said he had not spoken to Eidlisz and encouraged him to get in touch.

“I would love to talk to him,” Valkenet said.