James Fidel Sotolongo, 49, Port Orange, Florida, Stephanie Musselwhite, 52, Daytona Beach, Florida, and Christopher Mencis, 53, Longwood, Florida, were sentenced by United States District Court Judge John A. Jarvey for their respective roles in a mortgage fraud scheme wherein they ripped off $9.3M from JP Morgan Chase, $1.6M from Wells Fargo and $1.5M from Bank of America.
Archives For Loan App. Misreps
Joseph Brogan, 41, St. Louis, Missouri, pled guilty to multiple fraud charges related to a scheme involving applications for home loans.
Five defendants were sentenced in January 2015, for their roles in a mortgage fraud scheme involving straw buyers, kickbacks and bank bribery. Of the 91 individuals charged in Operation Wax House, eighty-nine defendants have either pleaded guilty or have been convicted following trial. The two remaining defendants are international fugitives.
Leonard E. Williams, 52, Sacramento, California, was sentenced to over seven years in prison for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and two counts of money laundering, in connection with a mortgage fraud scheme. At sentencing, U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb stated that one factor he used in imposing the sentence was Williams’ outburst in front of the jury during trial.
Christopher Wayne White, 44, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a real estate broker was sentenced by U.S. District Judge William P. Dimitrouleas to 41 months in prison, three years supervised release and ordered to pay $4,029,892, in restitution to victims in three separate fraud cases.
Charles Espinel, 61, and Jeannette Espinel, 59, of both Daly City, California, a former 32 year FBI employee and his wife, were sentenced on January 14, 2015, to 90 days in prison plus six months location monitoring and 200 hours of community service for misrepresenting their income in loan applications.
Emeka Udeze, 39, Bowie, Maryland, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte to 37 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release for conspiring to commit wire fraud in connection with two separate mortgage fraud schemes that involved loan application misrepresentations and short sale fraud.
Ania Nowak, 48, Belvidere, New Jersey, a former real estate title agent, admitted carrying out a mortgage fraud scheme in which she obtained seven loans, totaling more than $3.7 million, on two properties located in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey and Belvidere, New Jersey.
Steven J. Moorhouse, 62, Sandwich, Illinois, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Frederick J. Kapala to a charge of making a false statement to a financial institution. Moorhouse admitted providing a lender with false documents concerning his business assets.
Richard Stromberg, 50, Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced in federal court to 60 months of imprisonment, to be followed by five years of supervised release, for submitting false loan applications to lenders that included inflated income/assets and appraisals.