Flip This!

On an episode of A&E's popular reality series "Flip This House," Atlanta businessman Sam Leccima sits in front of a run-down house and calls buying and selling real estate his passion.

Now authorities and legal filings claim that Leccima's true passion was a series of scams that included faking the home renovations shown on the cable TV show and claiming to have sold houses he never owned.

"This is, indeed, a con artist," said Sonya McGee, an Atlanta pharmaceutical representative who says Leccima took $4,000 from her in an investment scheme.

McGee and others say Leccima's episodes of "Flip This House," A&E's most popular show, were elaborate hoaxes. His friends and family were presented as potential homebuyers and "sold" signs were slapped in front of unsold houses. They say the home repairs — the lynchpin of the show — were actually quick or temporary patch jobs designed to look good on camera.

Hoaxes you say? Puffing up prices and acting unscrupulously? Oh, this should be entertaining for law enforcement and those who might have been conned by this guy.

And the show may not be off the hook either.

WAGA-TV in Atlanta, which first aired the claims against Leccima, has shown footage from inside one of the homes, which had mismatched wooden floors and unpainted patched walls that were out of the view of TV cameras on "Flip This House."

McGee said she attended what was billed as a wrap party at one home. But when the party was shown on "Flip This House," it was presented as an open house at which someone expresses interest in buying the property.

New York-based Departure Films did not return repeated telephone calls to its offices by The Associated Press. A&E spokesman Dan Silberman said the network has stopped working with Leccima, who doesn't appear in this season's episodes.

"We are dismayed to learn of these allegations," read a statement issued by the network. "A&E Television Networks is not a party to any of the transactions shown in Flip This House and has not received any formal complaints about the properties or sales."

Silberman said the network — a joint venture of Hearst Corp., Walt Disney Co. and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal — doesn't investigate claims made by people on the show, opting to take them at their word.

The Better Business Bureau gives Leccima's company, Leccima Capital Partners, LLP, an "unsatisfactory" rating, saying four complaints have been filed against it in three years.