Mark Chandler, the former Langley-based developer whose local projects were forced into receivership and bankruptcy, will be released from prison in California early next year.
Chandler, 61, is best known in Langley for being the primary developer and promoter of Murrayville House, a condo project near the Langley Memorial Hospital. Although Chandler did not start the project, he took it over during a very early phase of construction and from 2015 he began energetically promoting pre-sales.
However, the project was beset by delays, and by 2017, it owed $62 million – more than twice what the finished building was then worth – to various creditors.
In addition, when the project was put into receivership, the court-appointed trustee found that 91 units had been “sold” 149 times. A total of 31 units were sold twice, 12 were sold three times, and one was sold four times.
Chandler’s lawyers characterized these pre-sales as “loans.”
Working out of an office in Willoughby Town Centre, Chandler owned or controlled numerous developable properties in the Langley area as well as the closed Sagebrush golf course in Merritt. He announced plants for some major developments and the re-opening of the course, but none came to fruition.
By 2017, Chandler was being buried in lawsuits from creditors.
His larger legal problem, however, stemmed from a previous development project in Los Angeles.
Between approximately 2009 and 2011, Chandler was involved in an attempt to develop a parking lot on Hill Street in L.A. into a condo building. That project also never went forward, and an FBI investigation was launched. Chandler was accused of a fraud that included using forged documents.
From 2014 to 2019, Chandler fought an extradition order to the United States, even attempting to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, which declined to hear the case.
Chandler pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud in late 2020, Judge Percy Anderson sentenced him to six years behind bars, and ordered him to make $1.7 million in restitution to his victims. Chandler had already been in jail awaiting trial for 18 months at that point.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website, Chandler is set to be released on Jan. 25, 2025.
He is likely to be deported from the United States. Foreign citizens can be deported from the U.S. if they are convicted of a crime that results in a prison sentence of a year or longer.
Chandler, who has both British and Canadian citizenship, could return to either country.
Although police announced that the Murrayville House project in Langley was under investigation in 2018, no charges were ever laid. Chandler has never been charged with a crime in Canada.
Chandler had previously been convicted of one count of theft in Arizona in connection to real estate dealings. He was deported from the U.S. in 2003 after he pleaded guilty, and shortly after that he got back into real estate development in Vancouver, which resulted in several lawsuits, before leaving for the U.S. again sometime around 2007.
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