Naperville couple investigated for alleged fraud to fund horse stables

Carent Stables of Naperville touts itself as the “quintessential equine experience,” a breeding business that’s produced winners at tracks such as Arlington International Racecourse and Hawthorne Race Course.

Co-owners Carol Delgado and Brent Houck have basked in the success. The stable’s website shows photos of the couple celebrating a first-place finish in 2016 and smiling from box seats at the Kentucky Derby and details the histories of each of their horses, including their prized chestnut colt named Stealin’ Summer.

Federal authorities, however, are looking into a different kind of stealing.

Court records show the Naperville couple are under investigation by the FBI amid allegations they fraudulently obtained millions of dollars in loans by creating bogus construction companies and used the windfall to fund the stable as well as the purchase and renovation of homes in Illinois and Florida.

Neither Delgado, 55, nor Houck, 59, has been charged with criminal wrongdoing. But an FBI search warrant affidavit recently unsealed in federal court accused them of stealing funds from a $10 million revolving line of credit issued by a bank to two financing companies owned by Delgado. The bank was not named in the filing, but records in a lawsuit pending in Cook County Circuit Court identify it as PrivateBank and Trust Co.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/news/ct-met-naperville-horse-trainers-20171009-story.html