Siringoringo Law Firm and Clausen & Cobb Management Company, Inc. are the subjects of search warrants, which have been served on five separate locations in the California counties of Orange and San Bernardino, in response to an alleged multi-million dollar loan modification scam.
Five defendants, including a real estate developer, a loan officer, a mortgage broker, and an escrow officer, have been sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken for a variety of mortgage and loan fraud charges arising out of the collapse of Desert Sun Development (DSD), a company previously headquartered in Bend, Oregon.
Laurance H. Freed, 51, Chicago, Illinois, and Caroline Walters, 53, of Palatine, Illinois, two executives of a prominent Chicago real estate development company, were indicted on federal fraud charges alleging that they lied about and concealed unpaid property taxes, the double-pledging of public financing notes issued by the City of Chicago, and the company’s default on those notes so they could secure credit extensions and payments from the city at a time when they knew their firm was having serious financial difficulties.
Derek Barnhill, 49, Rio Rancho, New Mexico, was sentenced to three months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, which is to include nine months of home confinement, for his bank fraud and money laundering conviction.
Earl Gross, 75, Las Vegas, Nevada, the former president and chief executive officer of U.S. Mortgage, a loan servicing company in Nevada, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in a scheme to defraud Wells Fargo Bank of more than $8 million.
Zahid and Riffat Ali, who have been wanted by federal authorities on bank fraud charges since 1996, surrendered to agents of the FBI at San Francisco International Airport when their flight from Pakistan arrived. They pleaded guilty in federal court in San Jose, California, to bank fraud.
Keith Churn, 44, Nashville, Tennessee, was found guilty of bank fraud by a federal jury on Friday, December 6, 2013.
James Arthur Nash, Jr., 43, and Arman Nshanian, 37, both of Corona, California, two deputies of the Los Angeles County, California, Sheriff’s Department were convicted in federal court for their roles in an $11 million mortgage fraud scheme.
Nicholas Mussolini, 27, Williamsville, New York, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of wire fraud before U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Arcara in connection with a fraudulent loan scheme. The charge carries a maximum penalty of a term of 20 years’ imprisonment, a term of supervised release of three years, and a fine of $250,000.
Harold L. Gruber, 60, Brooklyn, New York, an attorney, and his condominium-developer clients, Joseph Scarpinito, 59, who has a prior federal felony conviction for bank fraud, and Shiraz Sanjana, 54, have been barred pursuant to a court order from doing condo and securities-related work in New York pending the court case. The order enjoins the respondents from engaging in any act directly or indirectly relating to the offer or sale of securities (which includes coops and condos) in or from the State of New York.