Texas Man, 62, Pleads Guilty to Bankruptcy Fraud After Filing 10 Times

IRVING, TX - An Irving man who filed 10 bankruptcies in 12 years in an effort to stave off foreclosure pleaded guilty Tuesday to bankruptcy fraud.

Michael Shaub, 62, was charged via felony information and pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of bankruptcy fraud.

According to court documents, Mr. Shaub and his spouse purchased a house in Irving, Texas, incurring a mortgage loan secured by their ownership interest in the property.

In January 2012, he filed a Chapter 13 voluntary bankruptcy petition, which was dismissed without prejudice for failing to timely pay the Bankruptcy Trustee as specified in the Debtor’s Plan.

Over the ensuing seven years, he filed five additional bankruptcy petitions, the last of which was dismissed with prejudice, barring him from filing any more bankruptcies for two years, through May 2021. 

Less than five months after the dismissal, however, Mr. Shaub filed a seventh bankruptcy petition under his wife’s name without her knowledge or consent. The fraudulent petition – which Mr. Shaub admitted was intended to circumvent the court order prohibiting him from filing bankruptcies for two years – was dismissed without prejudice in October 2019.

Roughly two months after that dismissal, Mr. Shaub filed an eighth bankruptcy petition in contravention of the order barring him from filing through May 2021. In that petition, in response to a question asking whether he had filed any bankruptcies within the last eight years, Mr. Shaub listed only one of his bankruptcies and not the bankruptcy that resulted in the order barring him from filing.

In February 2020, a month after the eighth petition was filed, the Bankruptcy Court dismissed it with prejudice and barred Mr. Shaub from filing any more bankruptcies for a period of five years, through February 2025.

Roughly two years after that dismissal, Mr. Shaub filed a ninth bankruptcy, which was also dismissed with prejudice. This time, the Court barred Mr. Shaub from filing any bankruptcies for a period of ten years, through June 2032.

And yet just 14 months later, in August 2023, Mr. Shaub filed his tenth bankruptcy petition, which was dismissed with prejudice the same day.

Mr. Shaub now faces up to five years in federal prison.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s  Dallas Field Office conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Marty Basu is prosecuting the case.