Not even a stint in a Kentucky prison cell could stop serial counterfeiter and forger Kenneth Hampton from engaging in one of Philadelphia’s oldest real estate scams, federal prosecutors said.
In an indictment unsealed Tuesday, Hampton, 54, was charged with recruiting three family members in a scheme to steal two West Philadelphia rowhouses by filing fraudulent deeds with the city’s Department of Records.
The Monroe County, Pennsylvania Office of the District Attorney is warning citizens of a scam targeting homebuyers with pending purchases in Monroe County, Pennsylvania.
In this scam, dubbed the “Man in the Email” scam by the FBI, unwitting buyers are duped into wiring the closing costs and down payment to an out-of-state bank account when they receive closing instructions from their realtor or title company. In reality, the email was sent by someone who had hacked into the email account of the realtor or title agent, and the instructions are bogus – directing the homebuyer to wire the funds to a bank account under the control of the scammers.
Although this press release was local to Pennsylvania, this scam is happening across the country and being directed and all parties that wire funds into escrow accounts – homebuyers and lenders. Continue Reading…
When ex-Eagle Irving Fryar needed money in 2008 and 2009, a financial adviser now serving time in federal prison told him about a scheme they could use to defraud banks, New Jersey Deputy Attorney General John Nicodemo said in opening arguments at Fryar’s trial in Mount Holly on Wednesday.
By applying for multiple mortgage loans in quick succession, and using one property as collateral, the two men could obtain money that banks normally would not approve, Nicodemo told the jurors. “One bank will never know about the others, and you get a whole bunch of money using one property for all of the loans,” he said.
Ricardo Martinez, Coral Gables, Florida was arrested and charged with multiple felony counts which included a scheme to defraud, mortgage fraud, and unlawful promises to provide insider-information. He is accused of kickback extortion.
Martinez was employed in South Florida as an asset manager for a large financial holdings corporation. Investigators from the FBI and Okaloosa County Sherriff’s Office learned that Martinez tried to extort a local business person to send money in the form of “kickbacks” to Martinez personally from the sale of the corporation’s real estate properties in Okaloosa County, Florida.
During an undercover “sting” operation, Investigators sent funds requested by Martinez to his private address in South Florida. Martinez accepted the funds personally and he made efforts to conceal the money from all official real estate closing documents. Further, Martinez promised to provide other financial benefits to a local individual in exchange for the same “kick-back” agreement in the future.
The joint effort was successful due to ongoing partnerships between local and Federal authorities targeting fraudulent acts affecting the citizens of Okaloosa County.
Robert Walker, 44, North Royalton, Ohio, was sentenced to 33 months in prison. He previously pleading guilty to five counts of fraud. Walker operated of a loan modification fraud scheme and defrauded over 90 struggling homeowners out of $286,000.
According to court documents, Walker convinced homeowners on the verge of foreclosure to pay Walker an up-front fee of at least $1,995. Walker did little or no work to get a loan modification for customers. He promised that 80 percent of the fee would be reimbursed if he didn’t get them a modification. But Walker never intended to reimburse the fees. When he failed to obtain a loan modification, he refused the promised reimbursement. Continue Reading…
A Danville businessman who had worked to renovate dilapidated Antioch buildings pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges as part of a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s office, court records show.
Anthony Keslinke, 47, was arrested in February 2014 and ultimately charged with 12 counts of fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy, all stemming from a period between February 2011 and March 2014, during which time prosecutors say Keslinke falsified documents to “short sell” his own East Bay properties at a profit, and accepted a total of $550,000 from an undercover federal agent posing as a drug dealer, court records show.
… The Wax House investigation began in 2007 and became one of the largest in the country, involving over $100 million in mortgage loans. Once investigators started looking at bank documents (nearly 1,000,000 pages were eventually part of the evidence in multiple cases) and talking to people, they did not find a structured criminal enterprise but instead a connected web of fraud among numerous disinterested parties.
Bruce Swisshelm, 68, Battlefield, Missouri, and his son, Bruce Swisshelm II, 43, Springfield, Missouri pleaded guilty in two separate but related cases, to their roles in a more than $5.5 million bank fraud scheme. Swisshelm pleaded guilty to bank fraud and money laundering. Swisshelm II pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony. Continue Reading…
Michael P. O’Donnell, 53, mortgage broker, Middleton, Massachusetts was convicted of one count of bank fraud after a three-day bench trial before the Honorable Douglas P. Woodlock, United States District Judge. Judge Woodlock scheduled sentencing for October 20, 2015. Continue Reading…