Loan Officer Sentenced to 4+ Years in Prison for Mortgage Fraud Scheme

Allison Tussey —  March 11, 2014 — Leave a comment

Lance Kellow, 37, Henderson, Nevada, man has been sentenced to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay $834,000 in restitution for his role in a mortgage fraud scheme that caused over $1 million in losses to federally insured financial institutions.

Kellow was sentenced on Friday, March 7, 2014, by U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro. As previously reported by Mortgage Fraud Blog, Kellow was convicted by a jury in March 2013, of one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud, and one count of bank fraud.

Lance Kellow, an experienced loan officer and licensed mortgage broker in southern Nevada, used his experience and knowledge to commit mortgage fraud for profit. On four different occasions, Lance Kellow and his brothers, Jason and Vince Kellow, lied to mortgage lenders in order to get real estate and money for their own use.

According to the second superseding indictment, beginning in January 2007, the brothers conspired to sell their houses to their cousin, who was not qualified to buy them, for a significant profit. The brothers placed false information about their cousin’s employment and finances in mortgage loan applications, and helped him qualify for the loans by depositing cash in his bank account and omitting and paying down his debt, all without informing the lenders. As a result of the false statements in the loan applications, the lenders made loans to the cousin that they would not have otherwise made. Using this scheme, the Kellow brothers received over $500,000 in cash from these sales. The cousin then defaulted on the mortgages, causing losses to the banks in excess of $1 million.

Lance Kellow was permitted to self-report to federal prison by June 5, 2014.

Jason Kellow pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and was sentenced in March 2013 to 33 months in prison and ordered to pay $1 million in restitution. Vinson Kellow pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced in April 2013 to seven months in prison.

Daniel G. Bogden, United States Attorney for the District of Nevada, announced the sentence.

“Hundreds of persons have now been convicted and sentenced to prison for committing fraud in the lending and housing industries in southern Nevada,” said U.S. Attorney Bogden. “Since 2008, we have worked diligently with our federal, state and local law enforcement partners to prosecute federally the most egregious cases of this type of fraud.”

The case was investigated by the FBI and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kathryn C. Newman and Christina Brown.

Allison Tussey

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