Wednesday, November 05, 2008

California Man Sentenced In Mortgage Fraud Scheme

Jose Serrano, 45, Stockton, California, was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $219,000 in restitution to Washington Mutual Bank in connection with his role in a mortgage fraud scheme involving the purchase of numerous residential properties in the Stockton, California area between 2003 and 2005. 

According to Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Stegman, who prosecuted the case, the investigation has also resulted in charges against other defendants, including Iftikhar Ahmad, 37, Stockton, California, Manpreet Singh, 25, Manteca, California, John Ngo, 28, Dublin, California, William Bridge, 42, San Francisco, California, and Paul Bridge, 43, Davis, California.  Each of the above-named defendants has entered guilty pleas to various charges and each awaits sentencing. 

Another defendant, Joel Blanford, 40, San Ramon, California, has been charged and awaits trial.

This prosecution is the result of an extensive investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service—Criminal Investigation. 

mortgage fraud

1. Anybody know if Jose, Iftikhar, or Manpreet were legally present in the US when these crimes were commissioned?

   If they are not citizens, but here has properly documented immigrants, does anybody know if their respective sponsors are being pursued for the $219K restitution owed to the tax payer supported WaMu?

   Has the department of Homeland Security been advised of their shenanigans?

   Posted by  on  11/05  at  07:15 AM

2. Your English is horrible.  Are you here legally?  The problem is not with illegal aliens or noncitizens.  The problem is with greedy, unscrupulous individuals.

   Posted by  on  11/05  at  06:51 PM

3. Years and years of mortgage fraud analysis and research reveals a disproportionately high number of non citizens as mortgage fraud perpetrators. Additionally, nearly fifteen years ago I managed fraudulent EPD repurchase recovery for one of the GSE’s and not less than 70% of the cases were perpetrated by non US born fraudsters.

   Posted by  on  11/05  at  07:13 PM

4. Year and years of working in the mortgage industry, and years of reading this blog, indicate to me that ethnicity or national origin don’t have much to do with the tendency to commit crimes.  Read the names of the accused in this blog.  Look at those leading big banks and now in jail or about to be indicted.  Almost all the agents I work with are foreign born US citizens, and they are very honest.  No lawsuits, and very successful EVEN NOW.  I have seen other US born agents, and they were thieves in $1000 suits.  I have seen other brokers where most agents were a mixture of ethnicities, and I would not let my worst enemy do business there (broker had his license revoked).  Remember, statistics are a result of the sampling group that you use.  Why do think pollsters make so much $$$ and have to be very careful about how they conduct their sampling?

   Posted by  on  11/06  at  09:11 PM

5. You are correct about the sampling selection parameters impacting the results. The samples I was referring too were the loans where the borrower(s) stopped making payments during the first 12 months following loan origination. These loans were considered to be EPD’s (early payment defaults). If we had sampled randomly selected loans from the general loan population, we would not have had enough fraudulent EPD’s reviewed to be statistically meaningful sample.

   I am presently analyzing one of the top ten markets for mortgage foreclosures which is located in SW Florida. For example, in the 33904 zip code, Hispanics only represent 11% of the total population but of the defaulted mortgages that were originated as purchase money mortgages at fraudulently inflated purchase prices, the defaulted borrowers have Hispanic surnames in nearly 80% of the 360 cases reviewed to date. The disparity is so large, there IS obviously a predisposition for some cultures or ethnic groups to perpetrate mortgage fraud for profit.

   Posted by  on  11/06  at  09:46 PM

6. Sounds to me like their brokers were the ones that inflated prices, manufactured income docs, etc.  Remember Ameriquest?  I believe they were big on targeting the uneducated.  Who owned Ameriquest?  A future U.S. ambassador.  Do you think he didn’t know what was happening?  What about CountryWide, the Dorean (sp?) group?

   Posted by  on  11/08  at  12:35 AM