Friday, July 10, 2009
Suit Filed Alleging Massive Real Estate Fraud Scheme
A consumer fraud lawsuit against numerous Tucson, Arizona, real estate professionals and businesses was filed alleging a sophisticated, multi-million-dollar real estate fraud scheme. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants engaged in a sophisticated system of fraud that led to the filing of foreclosure notices on more than 130 homes and caused...
New Yorker Pleads Guilty to Stealing and Selling a Disabled Man’s House
Shawn Corcas, 39, St. Albans, New York, pleaded guilty to stealing the identity of a 68-year-old Jamaica, Queens, man who had been disabled as a result of a stroke and then secretly selling his house out from under him and pocketing the profits.
The defendant pleaded guilty before Queens Supreme Court Justice Joseph Grosso to one count of...
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Lawyer Charged With Stealing Escrow Funds
Marc A. Bernstein, 54, New York, New York, a lawyer, was indicted and charged with stealing settlement and escrow monies from his clients. This second indictment charges the defendant with stealing more than $1.5 million from five clients. This follows a previous indictment that was unsealed on May 19, 2009 charging the defendant with stealing...
14 Indicted for $100M Mortgage Fraud Scheme
AFG Financial Group, Inc., a mortgage origination company, Aaron Hand, 12/25/1971, Oyster Bay Cove, New York; Eugene Culbreath, 5/30/1973, Valley Stream, New York; Eric Shields, 12/19/1964, Media, Pennsylvania; Matthew McDermott, 10/20/1986, Merrick, New York; Marc Zirogiannis, 5/21/1968; Levittown, New York; Kenneth Law, 6/01/1956, Pelham, New...
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Foreclosure Consultant and Lawyer Sued for Phony Lawsuit Scam
Paul Noe Jr., a foreclosure consultant, and Mitchell Roth, an attorney, have been sued for allegedly conneing 2,000 desperate homeowners into paying exorbitant fees for "phony lawsuits" to forestall foreclosure proceedings.
These lawsuits were filed and abandoned, even though homeowners were charged $1,800 in upfront fees, at least $1,200 per...
Man Charged With Identity Theft and Mortgage Fraud
Raphael Libardi, Athem, Arizona, co-owner of the Phoenix based business Aracruz International Granite, allegedly illegally in this country from Brazil, has been booked on identity theft and mortgage fraud charges for using the social security number of a deceased person.
Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies executed search warrants at Aracruz...
Minneapolis Man Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud
Frederick Earle Deen, III, 29, Minneapolis, Minnesota, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of tax evasion in connection with a mortgage fraud scheme. He entered his plea July 1, 2009, before United States District Court Judge Richard Kyle. Deen was charged on April 21, 2009.
According to Deen's plea agreement, he admitted...
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
FBI Issues 2008 Mortgage Fraud Report
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2008 Mortgage Fraud Report, mortgage fraud Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) referred to law enforcement increased 36 percent to 63,713 during fiscal year (FY) 2008, compared to 46,717 reports in FY 2007. While the total dollar loss attributed to mortgage fraud is unknown, financial...
Man Sentenced for Mortgage Fraud Scheme
Scott Alexander, 70, Merriam, Kansas, has been sentenced to one year and a day in federal prison for mortgage fraud.
Alexander pleaded guilty in January, 2009, to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. In his plea he admitted that in 2003 and 2004 he conspired with co-defendant Wildor Washington, Jr., and others to...
Pennsylvania Man Sentenced for Falsifying Loan Applications
Francis R. Conti, 42, Erie, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced in federal court to thirty‑three months in jail and ordered to pay $46,183.91 in restitution on his conviction of conspiracy and mail fraud.
United States District Judge Sean J. McLaughlin imposed the sentence on Conti. According to information presented to the court by Assistant...
Monday, July 06, 2009
Three Men Sentenced in Mortgage Fraud Scheme
Harold Stafford, 43, Sumner County, Tennessee has been sentenced to serve eight years of imprisonment for conviction on fifty-one counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering. As previously reported on Mortgage Fraud Blog, Stafford and two co-defendants; Miles Jackson Black and Jeffrey Dunn Hathcock were indicted in November...
2 Former Staten Island Residents Indicted for $1 Million Real Estate Title Fraud
Joseph DeVito, 39, and his wife, Mary Ann Palladino-DeVito, 41, former residents of Staten Island, New York, now residing in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, have been arraigned on an indictment alleging that from 2002-2004 they embezzled over $1 million from homeowners seeking to clear titles, as well as their franchise's parent company. The...
Title Insurance Company Owner Charged in $1.7 Million Fraud Scheme
Jonathan Boxman, 46, an owner and operator of real estate title insurance companies, was charged in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, with defrauding clients of title companies he controlled of more than $1.7 million. According to the criminal complaint, Boxman stole money that was entrusted to those companies and used it to pay operating...
Guilty Verdict For Mortgage Fraud Ringleader
Uto Essien, 45, the ringleader of a multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud operation, has been convicted by an Adams County jury on four felony charges all related to the use of shell corporations and false invoices to skim money off the top of nearly three-dozen real estate transactions, announced Colorado Attorney General John Suthers.
Essien's...
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Mortgage Fraud Scheme Leads to 83 Count Indictment
Benjamin Tubbs, 49, Pickerington, Ohio, Kevin Murphy, 50, Blacklick, Ohio, and Karl Mullins, 33, formerly of Columbus, Ohio, and now residing in Florida, are alleged to have acted as the mortgage brokers and orchestrators of a scheme to buy and sell houses at highly-inflated prices and to falsify loan documents in order to skim ten of thousands...
|
Rachel Dollar, the editor of Mortgage Fraud Blog, is an attorney and Certified Mortgage Banker who handles litigation for lending institutions and secondary market investors. She is an author and a nationally recognized speaker on the topic of mortgage fraud. Ms. Dollar is a shareholder with the law firm of 
