Rosita Vilchez, 39, a fugitive in Lima, Peru, until she was extradited to the United States in June 2015, pled guilty to leading a wide-ranging mortgage fraud conspiracy that targeted hundreds of victims in the northern Virginia Hispanic community. The mortgage fraud scheme, which operated between August 2005 and August 2007, generated nearly $7.4 million in fraudulent proceeds and caused losses of more than $15 million to lenders, most of which were federally insured. Continue Reading…
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Petaluma man drops bid to avoid paying debt in mortgage fraud case
Defense attorneys for a former local real estate developer were granted a continuance Wednesday in Solano County Superior Court over a scheduling conflict.
Attorneys in the case of Richard D. Lamphere were ordered back to court Sept. 1 when a new trial date will be selected. A trial could possibly be set for March 2016, according to courtroom discussions.
A Norwell, Massachusetts based mortgage broker, one of its loan originators, and an outside insurance agent have been sued by the Massachusetts Attorney General for sales tactics that convinced elderly homeowners to apply for reverse mortgages and invest their proceeds in risky financial products, including variable annuities
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Howard Goldsmith, real estate developer, 41, Raleigh, North Carolina, was sentenced to a 30 month term of imprisonment for his role in a down payment fraud scheme. According to documents filed in Court, between August of 2006 and February of 2009, Goldsmith and his conspirators carried out a fraud upon various banks and lenders using entities Goldsmith owned or controlled, including Ganyard Farm Construction and Baldwin Estates. Continue Reading…
Scammers are trying to take advantage of struggling families by promising to buy homes for quick cash warns the North Carolina Attorney General.
These scammers send postcards and put out signs proclaiming, “We buy homes!” But rather than buying houses as advertised, most of these companies will try to convince you to sign over control of your home. The company then leases the property out to a new tenant. As a result, you lose rights to your home but remain on the hook for mortgage payments. Homebuyers or tenants can also be hit hard by these scams, which can advertise homes in deceptive rent-to-own agreements for big upfront fees. Continue Reading…
A former leader of a Haitian paramilitary force failed to persuade a judge that his mortgage fraud conviction in the United States was unsound.
Eastern District Judge Jack Weinstein denied Emmanuel “Toto” Constant’s habeas corpus petition on Friday, saying the lead-up to his conviction—which involved a state judge’s sua sponte decision to vacate Constant’s plea deal in light of serious allegations against him for his acts in Haiti—did not run afoul of due process requirements.
Alleging a “miscarriage of justice,” attorneys for former NFL star Irving Fryar and his mother are urging a judge to either overturn a jury’s verdicts convicting the two in a $1.2 million mortgage fraud or grant a new trial.
Motions filed by the defense in Superior Court in Mount Holly late last week say the convictions came despite a lack of evidence and because of prosecutorial misconduct.
While on probation from a 2006 conviction for conspiracy to defraud HUD, Manjur Alam implemented another scheme to defraud mortgage-lending institutions. Between 2006 and 2008, he recruited and organized unqualified buyers to submit loan applications that included false representations, and submitted supporting documentation for the applicants that included false verifications of rent and false letters of credit. The buyers defaulted on the loans and the lenders eventually sold the properties for less than the original loan amounts. Continue Reading…
Charise Stone, 46, Ashburn, Virginia, was sentenced to 60 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release for her role in a real estate short sale scheme that included tax and mortgage fraud, and passing fraudulent financial documents. Stone was also ordered to forfeit $721,552, and ordered to pay restitution of $2,441,174 to the victim financial institutions and the IRS.
Stone was found guilty by a federal jury on May 27, 2015 in the short sale scheme. According to court documents, from 2007 to 2010 Stone targeted distressed homeowners who owed more on their mortgage loan than the market value of the home with false promises of financial recovery. Stone acquired distressed homeowners’ properties in her own name or under entities she controlled, made false representations to mortgage lenders in order to induce approval of the short sales, and then re-sold the properties—often the same day or the next—to new buyers at a price above the short sale amount, in violation of agreements made with mortgage lenders. Continue Reading…