Mark Nagy Atalla, a defendant in a 2013 Federal Trade Commission action targeting deceptive mortgage and debt relief pitches, is the subject of a Southern California federal district court judgment of nearly $515,000.
James P. Kyricopoulos, 65, Haverhill, Massachusetts, was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Thomas Drechsler to three to five years in state prison followed by eight years of probation during which he must pay $24,000 in restitution to the victims for convincing homeowners to send him their mortgage payments in exchange for a loan modification.
Steve Weinstock, Roslyn Heights, New York, an attorney, has been arrested for allegedly stealing $720,000 held in an escrow account, as well as selling an East Hills, New York, property owned in the name of his law firm and pocketing over $700,000 in proceeds.
Numerous participants in an expansive mortgage fraud scheme were sentenced to prison on Monday, October 27, 2014, and Tuesday, October 28, 2014, by Chief United States District Judge James C. Dever, III. The defendants were involved in a conspiracy to defraud numerous banks and lenders using straw buyers resulting in mortgage loan disbursements exceeding $20 million, $5 million in loan proceeds, and losses exceeding $1 million.
Shannon Egeland, a former Bend, Oregon, real estate developer who pled guilty to mortgage fraud, was sentenced on January 29, 2014, to 120 months in prison. Egeland was to begin serving his sentence on August 1, 2014, by 2 pm. However, just prior to surrendering, Egeland was shot.
Top Agent Network, Inc. filed a lawsuit against leading online real estate company Zillow alleging theft of its proprietary trade secrets to create the highly touted “Coming Soon” feature.
Derryl L. Tanner, 47, Euclid, Ohio, and Julie A. Becker, 39, Cleveland, Ohio, are the subjects of a six-count indictment charging them of engaging in a $2.1 million mortgage-fraud scheme involving a Westlake, Ohio, home.
Warren Ballentine, 43, Durham, North Carolina, an Illinois lawyer and Internet radio talk show host, was convicted on federal charges for engaging in two mortgage fraud schemes that defrauded lenders of a total of approximately $9.7 million.
Melanie Ferreira, 62, Lagrangeville, New York, was sentenced to 51 months in prison following her conviction for engaging in a series of frauds, which included cheating the Internal Revenue Service out of nearly half a million dollars, and perpetrating a bank fraud scheme wherein she caused a forged cashier’s check to pay off her mortgage.
Lawrence Foster, 49, Miami Beach, Florida, the President of Paradise is Mine, was found guilty by a federal jury of conspiring to commit wire fraud and seven counts of wire fraud, and Johana Leon, 38, Miami Beach, a corporate officer of Paradise is Mine, was found guilty of three counts of structuring currency transactions, for their roles in soliciting funds from investors promising that Paradise is Mine owned land and would use investor funds to develop the island of Rum Cay in the Bahamas, but instead used the money for personal use.