Alberic Okou Agodio, 30, Bethesda, Maryland, was indicted on charges arising from a mortgage fraud scheme in which he used the names of immigrants and students, along with false financial information, to obtain approximately $3.8 million in home mortgage loans to buy approximately three dozen row houses in Baltimore, Maryland, all of which are in default or foreclosure.
Kirk Smith, Harris County, Texas, has been ordered to prison following his conviction for defrauding seven different Houston, Texas-area banks of more than $2 million in 2007 and 2008 with a check kiting scheme, which allowed him to use inflated account balances to qualify for loans and lines of credit. Continue Reading…
Donna Marie Kozak, La Vista, Nebraska, was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska in Omaha to serve 36 months in prison and three years of supervised release for tax obstruction, filing a false claim and filing false retaliatory property liens.
Sharon Lynn Shaw, 67, San Jose, California, pleaded guilty in federal court to bank fraud and theft by bank officer. Shaw admitted that she used the names, Social Security numbers, and other personal information belonging to her parents, without their knowledge or authorization, to create false and fraudulent loan applications which she submitted to her employer Wells Fargo Bank.
Minerva Sanchez, 48, Fremont, California, a licensed real estate agent, was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii to 21 months in prison for her role in a short sale fraud scheme.
Fraudulent investment property schemes are on the rise in the form of straw borrowers, abnormally high appraisals, evasion of purchase guidelines and large numbers of purchased properties. Real estate investment scams typically spread by word-of-mouth and require people to invest large sums of money in investment properties. These types of scam promise a large increase in the value of the property resulting high returns or unusually high interest on contributed funds.
Michael T. Hardman has been convicted in an investment fraud scheme. Hardman was found guilty of two counts of grand theft for defrauding more than 30 Floridians in a fraudulent promissory note scheme.
Nadia Kuzmenko, 35, Loomis, California, Peter Kuzmenko, 36, Sacramento, California, Edward Shevtsov, 51, Sacramento, and Aaron New, 39, Sacramento, were found guilty by a federal jury of multiple counts of mail and wire fraud associated with their involvement in a straw buyer mortgage fraud scheme that cost financial institutions approximately $16 million.
Jason Springer, an attorney, and Rick Makohoniuk, a real estate agent, were both convicted of bank fraud after an eight-day jury trial. Springer was convicted of seven counts of bank fraud, and Makohoniuk was convicted of one count of bank fraud, in connection with a short sale/property flipping scheme.
Gary Patton Hall Jr., 49, Tifton, Georgia, a former bank president and CEO, was charged for his role in a bank fraud scheme in which he is alleged to have hidden under-performing and at-risk loans from the bank and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, among others.