Sergio Natera, 35, Bridgeport, Connecticut, a licensed real estate agent, pleaded guilty before United States Magistrate Judge Holly B. Fitzsimmons in Bridgeport to one count of bank fraud stemming from his involvement in a “short sale” mortgage fraud scheme. A short sale transaction involves a mortgage holder or lender entering into an agreement to release its mortgage or lien on real property in exchange for payment of less than the
Continue Reading...Archives For November 30, 1999
Monica Cardona, 39, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, a former loan officer at a Hackensack, New Jersey realty company, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for committing mortgage fraud in connection with the sale of a residential property she owned in Westwood, New Jersey. Cardona pleaded guilty before United States District Judge William H. Walls on January 26, 2010, to a
Continue Reading...
Gregory Cooper was sentenced to 210 months in prison today for defrauding homeowners in Queens and the Bronx, New york, through a predatory mortgage scheme and for carrying out a separate scheme to defraud mortgage brokers around the country by selling them fraudulent lists of potential customers. A jury found Cooper guilty of nine counts of mail fraud and two counts of conspiracy
Continue Reading...
Stepping up efforts to prevent home loan rescue scams, a free, five-and-half-minute educational video has been released that provides useful information about home foreclosure and tips to avoid becoming a victim of scam artists.
The video is available on the Attorney General’s website, www.azag.gov, or on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/AZAttorneyGeneral. It was made possible by last year’s historic settlement between the State of Arizona and Countrywide Financial Corporation
Continue Reading...
Irshad a/k/a “Tony” Ramzan, 36, Baldwin, New York, a former mortgage broker who supervised the operations of Queens-based Platinum Funding, was sentenced to seven years in prison for his roles in a scheme to steal over $6 million in the proceeds of home mortgage loans issued by various banks for the purchase of residential properties, which funds were supposed to be used to pay off existing mortgages on the properties, and in another
Continue Reading...
Darin Lee McAllister, 44, Brentwood, Tennessee, a Special Agent employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Nashville, Tennessee, was indicted by a grand jury sitting in Nashville, Tennessee.
The 19 count indictment charges McAllister with wire fraud in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section
Continue Reading...
A California, a real estate broker, was convicted of conspiring with her boyfriend and his brother to commit $17.5 million in real estate fraud by purchasing 35 properties using stolen identities…
Michael Fiorito, 41, Prior Lake, Minnesota, was sentenced by United States District Court Judge Patrick J. Schiltz on charges connected to an equity-skimming scheme that targeted vulnerable homeowners. Fiorito was sentenced to 270 months in prison on one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and six counts of mail fraud. Continue Reading...
Last July, Manhattan D.A. Robert Morganthau announced an indictment of the principals in a press release which declared that “AFG’s business model was focused solely on defrauding the lending banks of millions of dollars.”
MARI’s 12th Periodic Mortgage Fraud Case Report – Executive Summary – reports that “fraud continues to be a pervasive issue, growing and escalating in complexity. The market is attempting to recover from devastating financial losses and reputational harm due to the lack of controls, and denial and greed that enabled a fallacy of flourishing profits during the mortgage industry boom years. In 2009, we saw the beginning of a laser-focused effort to realign this industry back to the basics of
Continue Reading...