Charges have been filed in two separate cases against predatory real estate companies and loan brokers who conspired to deceive first-time home buyers as well as homeowners seeking to refinance their existing mortgage. In the first case, Joseph Villaescusa, 46, Whittier, California, Isabel Gutierrez, 49, Tony Gutierrez,

Twenty-four individuals have been charged with using a corrupt enterprise to conduct a pattern of racketeering activity, namely, wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. The charged racketeering activity all stems from an extensive mortgage fraud scheme based in San Diego, California, that involved 220 properties with a total sales price of more than $100 million dollars.

The lead defendants charged with running the corrupt

3 individuals have pled guilty to loan modification fraud against hundreds of “desperate California homeowners” and were sentenced to as much as 6 years of prison. The defendants sentenced were part of a foreclosure scam engineered by the First Gov company, which was based in San Bernardino, California.

• Rosa Conrado, 51, San Bernardino, California, was

Manpreet Singh, 25, Stockton, California, has been sentenced to six months of home detention and five years’ probation for mail fraud for her part in a mortgage fraud scheme. As a special term of probation, she was ordered to pay $1,000 a month in restitution to the victim of her mortgage fraud scam. And she was also ordered to pay $163,500 in restitution. As Continue Reading...

Howard A. Sperling, 44, San Diego, California, pleaded guilty in federal district court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his part in a scheme to defraud a California construction firm of nearly $13 million.

According to the information presented in court: From August 2003 through January 2004, Sperling and his co-defendants conspired to defraud Cornell Corrections of

Jeanetta M. Standefor, 40, Altadena, California, the promoter of an $18 million real estate investment scheme that targeted African-American individuals in Southern California and other states has been sentenced to 151 months in federal prison. In addition to the prison term, United States District Judge Percy Anderson ordered Standefor to pay $8,688,924.

Through her Pasadena-based