Mortgage Fraud Conspirator Admits Role in Submitting False Documents to Lenders

Allison Tussey —  March 27, 2014 — 1 Comment

Antonio Perez Marcial, 41, Bakersfield, California, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud in connection with a mortgage fraud scheme in Bakersfield.

According to Perez-Marcial’s guilty plea, he conspired with his co-defendants from 2007 to 2010 to use straw buyers to purchase residential properties in Bakersfield developed by Jara Brothers Investments (JBI), owned by co-defendants Eliseo Jara and Sergio Jara, and Pershing Partners LLC, owned by co-defendant Lucia Chavez. The conspirators paid straw buyers to purchase the properties from JBI and Pershing Partners and funded the purchases using loans they obtained for the straw buyers from lenders based on false and fraudulent loan applications.

The loan applications the conspirators submitted to lenders frequently contained false statements concerning the straw buyers’ employment status, income, assets, intent to occupy the properties as their personal residences, and source of down payments for the purchase of the properties. The conspirators concealed from the lenders that the property developers funded certain of the straw buyers’ down payments.

The conspirators also submitted false supporting documentation to lenders such as false and altered bank account statements purporting to show that the straw buyer had a high bank account balance, false verifications of the straw buyers’ bank account funds, false verifications of rent purporting to be from the straw buyer’s landlord, false pay stubs, and false verifications of employment. Perez-Marcial at times received from other conspirators a “consulting fee” ranging from $20,000 to $30,000 or more when a property was sold to a straw buyer, to compensate Perez-Marcial for having obtained the straw buyer and to fund the straw buyer’s payment. Perez-Marcial admitted he caused lenders approximately $3,455,250 in losses due to his role in the conspiracy.

Perez-Marcial is scheduled to be sentenced on June 2, 2014 at 10:00 a.m. by Senior United States District Judge Anthony W. Ishii. The maximum sentence for the conspiracy charge is 30 years in prison. The actual sentence will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory sentencing factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.

Co-defendant Ricardo Salinas pleaded guilty to bank fraud in 2013, and his sentencing is set for July 28, 2014.

U.S. Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced the guilty plea.

This case is the product of a joint investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kirk E. Sherriff and Henry Z. Carbajal, III are prosecuting the case.

“Mortgage fraud saps the strength of our banking system and has victimized communities across our nation,” said Jose M. Martinez, Special Agent in Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in Oakland. “Today’s plea represents one of the many results of the ongoing and focused efforts of the IRS and our law enforcement partners to identify and hold criminals who tried to game our financial system accountable for their actions.”

Allison Tussey

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One response to Mortgage Fraud Conspirator Admits Role in Submitting False Documents to Lenders

  1. Such business would not be possible if the banks had not welcomed it. The bank that was defrauded was not a victim, but a willing partipicant, throwing the monkey under the bus. They should also indict the bank employees who processed the loan/s.

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