On March 1, 2009, Christopher L. Durling — a 49-year-old title and escrow company owner operating Direct Title Insurance Agency across offices in Utah, Nevada, Texas, Indiana, and California — pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud before Senior U.S. District Judge Kent J. Dawson after a federal investigation revealed he had systematically diverted funds from client escrow accounts for personal use over a period spanning approximately March 2009 through June 2011. Durling sustained the scheme by running a check-kiting operation that artificially inflated trust-account balances to conceal the growing shortages his diversions created. By late 2010, the volume of diverted funds had grown so large that the kiting could no longer mask the fraud: 12 pending real estate transactions froze mid-closing, and insurance companies were forced to reimburse 13 lenders approximately four million dollars to cover the missing funds. Sentenced in 2015, Durling received 33 months in federal prison and was ordered to pay $3.96 million in restitution. Among the victims were buyers who had already sold their previous homes and were days away from closing, left without a property, without their funds, and with no recourse while the scheme's collapse was still being untangled.