SAN JOSE — Hundreds of people face a forbidding path to recoup their losses from a vast property fraud scheme despite sales of San Jose and Fremont condos that were part of a suspect’s real estate empire.

The condominium complexes are among the Bay Area properties tied to a South Bay real estate executive who, federal investigators claim in the court case, defrauded 250 investors out of a combined $119 million.

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Sanjeev Acharya and his company, Silicon Sage Builders, are the central figures in the real estate fraud case.

In 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Acharya of fraud, claiming he bilked unwitting investors, many of them of South Asian heritage, out of money they had invested in projects by Acharya and Silicon Sage Builders.

A federal judge overseeing the case shoved all of Acharya’s assets, including his Bay Area properties, into court-ordered receivership. The receiver has been attempting to unwind the financial tangle, largely by selling off assets in a quest to steer funds to creditors and investors.

Two of the largest properties were a for-sale condominium complex in San Jose at 1853 Almaden Road and a similar for-sale condo property at 42111 Osgood Road in Fremont.

The proceeds from the sales of the condos offered hope that money raised from the condominium sales might help provide money to the defrauded investors.

The court-ordered receiver crafted a deal with Acres Loan Origination, the primary construction lender for both the 96-unit San Jose complex and the 93-unit Fremont building, to absorb the costs of completing the project and lend the receiver money to ensure the buildings would be completed.

“The hope (though certainly not the guarantee) was that completion would result in Acres being paid in full with proceeds left over to pay off junior liens held by investors and potentially additional proceeds for the receivership estate (the investors and other creditors),” the receiver stated in a March 28 filing with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

Those hopes appear to have been dashed in both cases, court papers show.

“Unfortunately, the cost to complete the Osgood and Almaden projects exceeded the original estimates and took longer than anticipated,” the receiver stated in the new status report regarding the condo properties.

All of the condos in the 93-unit Fremont residential complex have been bought, the court papers show.

“The Osgood project was fully completed in early 2024 and by June 2024 had sold all of its units,” the receiver reported to the court.

The 96-unit San Jose condo building is proceeding far more slowly in its sales activity.

“The Almaden project was completed a few months ago and has been in the process of selling units, though sales are going slower than the parties had hoped,” the receiver reported. “As of the filing of this report, Almaden has closed escrow on 34 units, 25 are in escrow, and 37 units remain available for sale.”

As of June 2024, Acres had received $62.7 million in proceeds from the sales of the condos at the Fremont residential property.

As of December 2024, Acres had received $12.3 million in sales proceeds from condo purchases at the San Jose complex.

The receiver offered several factors for the struggles at both the San Jose and the Fremont condo projects.

“Economic repercussions of the pandemic and supply chain issues” were among the problems, according to the receiver’s report. The receiver added that “much of the work that was completed prior to the receiver’s appointment needed to be redone or repaired because of shoddy workmanship or because the projects sat idle for a number of months.”