Mariano Vincente Cano, Tuscon, Arizona, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge David C. Bury to 14 months in prison and ordered to pay over $350,000 in restitution for his role in a straw buyer mortgage fraud scheme.
Cano was sentenced on February 27, 2014.
In November 2013, Cano pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Cano is the eleventh defendant to be indicted in connection with this mortgage fraud scheme. The other ten defendants were previously charged by indictment in CR10-1413-TUC-FRZ.
According to the plea agreement, Cano and other co-conspirators, recruited or assisted in recruiting straw buyers to purchase real estate in Arizona. The goal of this conspiracy was to obtain cash back at closing for each of the loans. In order to obtain financing and as part of the loan approval process, Cano admitted that he and others submitted or caused to be submitted fraudulent loan applications or other documents to various lenders in order qualify the straw buyers for financing.
As previously reported by Mortgage Fraud Blog, Cano and others submitted these documents with knowledge that the documents contained one or more of the following material false representations: (1) false statement of intent to occupy the property as a primary residence; (2) inflated income; (3) false representations concerning employment; (4) false statement that a residence would be used as a rental property and/or (5) failed to disclose that the loan applicant had recently purchased another property that contained a major liability, a mortgage.
The investigation was conducted by Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and the United States Trustee’s Office.
