John A. Bui, 46, of San Jose, California was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $3,500,000 in forfeiture as a result of his convictions for conspiring to commit wire fraud, destruction of records in a federal investigation, and witness tampering.
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William Warren Baker, 57, Laguna Nigel, California, was arrested for stealing over $900,000 from investors in a Ponzi scheme by fraudulently promising to buy, refurbish, and re-sell distressed homes for a profit. Baker is charged with 13 felony counts of using untrue statements in the purchase or sale of securities and 13 felony counts of selling securities in issuer transactions
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Martha Rodriguez, 38, Downey, California, orchestrated a real estate fraud scheme that caused nearly $13 million in losses after falsely promising to help homeowners in default on their mortgages has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. Rodriguez who pleaded guilty to mail fraud and
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Jon Weldon James, 33, Long Beach, California, who operated a number of ventures that he used to solicit money with false claims of profitable investments in real estate has pleaded guilty to a federal wire fraud charge. James pleaded guilty to the federal offense related to his Ponzi scheme that collected more than $33 million from his El
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Milton Retana, 46, Huntington Park, California, who preyed on Spanish-speaking investors with promises of hefty returns in the real estate bubble has been found guilty of federal charges for bilking more than 2,000 victims out of more than $62 million. Retana was convicted of six counts of mail fraud and one count of making false statements to government agents who were
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Felix Pichardo, 27, Lancaster, California was sentenced to eight years in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution of $777,000 in relation to a mortgage fraud scheme in which he “purchased” homes in Altadena and Riverside, California. Pichardo pleaded
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Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz, joined by U.S. Senator Harry Reid, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, and Assistant Attorney General Tony West of the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, announced Operation Stolen Hope as part of a continuing federal-state crackdown on mortgage foreclosure rescue and loan modification scams. The operation involves 118 actions by 26 federal and state agencies.
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The State Bar of California has taken action against 5 more lawyers under investigation for loan modification misconduct, bringing to 14 the number of attorneys who have resigned or been placed on involuntary inactive enrollment since creation of the bar’s Loan Modification Task Force in April 2009.
Timothy Thurman [Bar #216048], 37, Altadena, California, resigned on November 2, 2009, with charges pending following
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Martin Quoc Pham, 28, Garden Grove, California, has been sentenced to 132 months in federal prison for orchestrating two identity theft schemes in which he obtained personal information from hundreds of consumers and used the data in an attempt to fraudulently obtain approximately $1.5 million from home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) and credit cards accounts. Pham was sentenced
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Visanio Eugene Vann, 47, Thousand Oaks, California, was sentenced by United States District Judge S. James Otero in Los Angeles to 95 months in federal prison for orchestrating an identity theft scheme in which he used personal identifying information taken from dozens of mortgage and credit files to fraudulently obtain credit cards that were used to purchase more than $1 million in goods and services. In addition to the nearly
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