A loan officer and five straw buyers/investors were charged in federal court via a criminal information for their roles in a mortgage fraud scheme involving 26 properties throughout the Cleveland, Ohio, area and more than $7.5 million in mortgage loans:
Jeffrey S. Brown, Jr., 30, Cleveland, Ohio, a loan officer;
Rolante
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Six men were indicted by a grand jury on 10 counts involving charges that they stole more than $2.6 million from lenders by filing fraudulent mortgage loan applications. Those charged in the indictment are:
Jonathan P. Domash, 40, Marlboro, New Jersey;
Diversified Assets, Inc., owned and operated
William S. Poff, 37, Marshall, Michigan, a former resident of Washington State, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Seattle, Washington, to 135 months in prison, five years of supervised release and $4,258,529 in restitution for 30 felony counts of conspiracy, bank fraud and money laundering offenses. Poff was tried and convicted of the charges in March 2010.
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Gabriel Richard Viramontes, 48, Elk Grove, California, was convicted of six counts of bank fraud and seven counts of mail fraud. The guilty verdict was returned by a federal court jury in Sacramento after a seven-day trial before United States District Judge Edward J. Garcia. The jury deliberated just over an hour.
According to testimony presented at trial, Viramontes
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Christopher Allen Taylor, 38, Riverside, California, a loan officer, is charged with eight felony counts of grand theft and faces a maximum sentence of 18 years in state prison if convicted. He is out of custody on $100,000 bail.
Richard Cadieu, 73, Laguna Woods, California, a real estate agent, is charged with one felony count of grand theft and faces a maximum sentence
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The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in its new report, Mortgage Loan Fraud SAR Filings In Fourth Quarter and Calendar Year 2010, released full year data showing the number of suspicious activity reports involving mortgage loan fraud (MLF SARs) increased 4 percent in 2010 to 70,472 compared with 67,507 MLF SARs filed in 2009. The report also shows that the growth rate of MLF SARs began to slow over the last two
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Anthony V. Weis, 45, Phoenix, Maryland, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake to 78 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for wire fraud in connection with a mortgage fraud scheme to defraud lenders of approximately $3.9 million in just eight months. Judge Blake ordered Weis to pay restitution of $4,007,705, which includes the loss to the
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Frederick Ugwu, 54, Upper Saddle River, N.J., a New Jersey real estate investor, was sentenced to 50 months in prison in connection with a mortgage fraud and property-flipping scheme involving rental properties in Paterson, New Jersey.
Ugwu was convicted in December 2009 after a five-week jury trial on counts of wire
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James C. Alberts, 45, Point Pleasant, N.J., was sentenced in Norfolk, Virginia, federal court to four and one-half years in prison for conspiring to commit bank fraud, and was ordered to pay over $1.7 million in restitution. Alberts previously pled guilty to the charge on December 6, 2010.
According to court documents, Continue Reading...
After a two-year investigation, four indictments charging 17 people with more than 108 crimes were handed down for their roles in mortgage fraud and identity theft schemes that stole more than $20 million from homeowners, banks, and the County government. Among those arrested are lawyers, mortgage brokers, real estate brokers, bank employees, an appraiser, a financial consultant and one United States Postal worker. The investigation was dubbed “Operation Sweet Deal.”
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