Archives For Hawaii

Anthony T. Williams, 49, Pineville, Louisiana was sentenced today in federal court to 240 months’ imprisonment for wire fraud and mail fraud in connection with a fraudulent mortgage relief scheme.

Williams marketed a fraudulent mortgage debt reduction scheme to distressed homeowners, who were mostly non-native English speakers in the Filipino immigrant community in Hawaii. Williams created two companies, Mortgage Enterprise Investments (MEI) and Common Law Office of America (CLOA), neither of which was licensed to service or modify mortgages. Through MEI, Williams made conflicting promises to clients that he could eliminate their existing mortgage obligations to their lenders, or reduce their mortgage obligations by half. Through CLOA, Williams promised legal representation in mortgage-related litigation and foreclosure proceedings. To give himself the appearance of credibility, Williams told prospective clients he was a “private attorney general” and brandished an official-looking law enforcement badge and credentials, despite not having a law license or any affiliation with law enforcement.

Williams falsely promised victims that he could eliminate their existing home mortgage obligations by filing bogus documents with the Hawaii Bureau of Conveyances. These documents included new MEI mortgages and notes obligating homeowners to make monthly payments to MEI. Williams then advised homeowners to stop making their mortgage payments to their lenders and to pay him instead.

Between 2012 and 2015, Williams enlisted 112 victims in Hawaii into his MEI program and fraudulently obtained over $230,000 from his victims, without providing any legitimate services. Several victims testified at trial that they had relied upon Williams’s representations and went into foreclosure or bankruptcy. Two victims testified that they lost their homes as a result of Williams’s scheme.

For several years, Anthony Williams actively preyed upon distressed homeowners within the Filipino community here in the State of Hawaii. His scheme financially devastated his victims, forcing some into bankruptcy and homelessness. As a result of this prosecution, Williams’s scheme has come to an end and Williams will be incarcerated for 20 years. My office will continue to protect the most vulnerable members of our community,” said U.S. Attorney Price.

Williams knowingly targeted and preyed upon citizens of our Filipino community” said Eli Miranda, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Honolulu Division. “He took advantage of this vulnerable and in need population, delivering empty promises. He drained their finances leaving many penniless. The FBI cannot, and will not stand by. We will continue to maximize our efforts with partner agencies to bring these perpetrators to justice and hold them accountable for their crimes.

A federal jury convicted Williams on March 3, 2020 of 32 counts of wire fraud and mail fraud after a four week trial.

In addition to a term of imprisonment, the Court also imposed three years of supervised release, and restitution. The Court’s sentence of imprisonment is to run consecutively to a fifteen-year sentence of imprisonment that another court had handed down earlier to Williams for similar fraudulent conduct in the State of Florida.

The investigation was led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kenneth M. Sorenson and Gregg Paris Yates handled the prosecution.

 

Anthony T. Williams, 48, Nashville, Tennessee was found guilty yesterday of 32 counts of wire and mail fraud in connection with fraudulent mortgage debt reduction scheme.

According to the evidence presented at trial, Williams marketed a fraudulent mortgage debt reduction scheme to distressed homeowners, who were mostly non-native English speakers in the Filipino immigrant community in Hawaii. Williams created two companies, Mortgage Enterprise Investments (MEI) and Common Law Office of America (CLOA), neither of which was licensed to service or modify mortgages. Through MEI, Williams made conflicting promises to clients that he could eliminate their existing mortgage obligations to their lenders, or reduce their mortgage obligations by half. Through CLOA, Williams promised legal representation in mortgage-related litigation and foreclosure proceedings. To give himself the appearance of credibility, Williams told prospective clients he was a “private attorney general” and brandished an official-looking law enforcement badge and credentials, despite not having a law license or any affiliation with law enforcement.

The evidence at trial demonstrated that Williams falsely promised victims that he could eliminate their existing home mortgage obligations by filing bogus documents with the Hawaii Bureau of Conveyances. These documents included new MEI mortgages and notes obligating homeowners to make monthly payments to MEI. Williams then advised homeowners to stop making their mortgage payments to their lenders and to pay him instead.

The government presented evidence that between 2012 and 2015,Williams enlisted 112 victims in Hawaii into his MEI program and fraudulently obtained over $218,000. Furthermore, several victims testified at trial that they relied upon Williams’s representations and went into foreclosure as a result of the MEI program and lost their homes.

The verdict followed a four-week trial before United States District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi. Sentencing is scheduled for June 24, 2020

The investigation was led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kenneth M. Sorenson and Gregg Paris Yates handled the prosecution.

Cristina Montijo was the subject of a complaint and arrest warrant issued in the Southern District of New York on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, wire fraud and bank fraud in connection with fraudulent emails.  She was arrested in the Southern District of California.

According to the complaint, sworn to by a Detective with the New York City Police Department for the purpose of demonstrating probable cause for the issuance of the arrest warrant, on or about June 21, 2016 Victim-1 who was in the process of purchasing a home, received an email that purported to be from Victim-1’s attorney.  The fraudulent email instructed Victim-1 to wire $190,000 to a bank account at a San Diego Credit Union to be held in escrow for the home purchase.  A copy of the residential purchase contract for the property that Victim-1 was purchasing was included in the email. Victim-1 wired the money and then called the real estate attorney to confirm receipt of the wire and was told that the attorney had not requested the wire.  Victim-1 realized that the email address on the email received differed from the real estate attorney’s true email address by one character.  Victim-1 recalled the wire.

Victim-1 later received another email from the incorrect email address.  The new fraudulent email supplied an additional bank account number for Victim-1 to deposit funds into because the prior wire of funds had not been received.

According to the complaint, based on review of bank records, the detective learned that the bank account number in the first fraudulent email to Victim-1 was registered to Montijo.  The account was opened about June 16, 2016 and closed about June 23, 2016 due to suspected fraud.

The complaint also states that in or about November 3, 2015, Victim-2, an individual in Tennessee, received a fraudulent email purportedly from Victim-2’s real estate agent directing Victim-2 to wire approximately $181,000 to a bank account.  Victim-2 later realized the email address was different by one character from that of the actual real estate agent.  Victim-2 became suspicious and, after contacting the real estate agent, did not wire the funds. That account was also registered to Montijo and was opened about October 3, 2015.

On about November 24, 2015, Victim-3, an individual in Hawaii, received emails purportedly from Victim-3’s escrow officer and real estate agent but which were different from the actual email addresses by one character.  Based on the directives in these fraudulent emails, Victim-3 wired approximately $331,000 to a bank account. That bank account, opened on November 13, 2015, was registered to Fountain Co-Cooperative LLC and was closed December 10, 2015 due to suspected fraud. Montijo was the sold registered agent of Fountain Co-Cooperative, LLC and was registered to an address on Chamoune Avenue in San Diego at which Montijo resided since at least 1993. In November 2015, Montijo wired approximately $181,500 from that account to an account in Malaysia and approximately $118,200 to an account in South Africa.

In about April 2016, Victim-4, an individual in San Francisco, California, received a fraudulent email purporting to be from the real estate agent involved in a real estate transaction for Victim-4 and instructing Victim-4 to wire approximately $127,791 to be held in escrow in an identified bank account.  Victim-4 wired the funds and later discovered the email address was one character different from that of the real estate agent. That bank account was opened about March 31, 2016 and closed April 5, 2016 and was registered to Fountain Co-Cooperative, LLC.

On about April 28, 2016, Victim-5 received a fraudulent email purportedly from Victim-5’s attorney. Victim-5 later learned the attorney’s email account had been compromised or hacked.  At the direction of the fraudulent emails, one of which referenced the sender’s “account secretary Christina Montijo who is a trustee to the trust account” (the fraudulent emails were later traced to an originating IP address in South Africa), Victim-5 wired approximately $250,000 to a bank account. That bank account, opened about March 31, 2016 and closed about May 6 due to fraudulent activity, was registered to Montijo and Fountain Co-Cooperative LLC.   On about May 4, 2016, Montijo attempted to wire funds to another bank account that was jointly registered to Montijo and Albert Montijo (believed to be the name of Montijo’s deceased husband.)   Montijo was informed by bank employees that the wire was potentially fraudulent and Montijo claimed that she had been owed the funds from Victim-5 from a real estate transaction from several years prior and that she had business partners abroad.

On about June 30, 2016, Victim-6, an individual in the Southern District of New York, received a fraudulent email purportedly from Victim-6’s attorney, later learning the attorney’s emails had been compromised or hacked.  Victim-6 wired approximately $240,000 to a bank account, again registered to Fountain Co-Cooperative, LLC. Montijo attempted to wire a portion of these funds to an entity called “Refunds LLC” purportedly for a “refund owed” but actually sent to an account in the name of “Reofunds LLC.”

Montijo registered a company called “All Cover LLC” in the state of California for the purpose of “buying/selling real estate” On about July 14, 2016, Montijo attempted to cash four checks made out to All Cover totaling approximately $46,500.  From discussions with representatives of the three companies that issued the checks, the detective states that he learned that the checks were fraudulent and not written out to All Cover.  The indictment details additional allegedly fraudulent checks that Montijo attempted to cash and which were made out to herself, Fountain Co-Cooperative LLC and a person believe to be Montijo’s mother-in-law.

Naum Morgovsky was named in a criminal complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on August 24, 2016, alleging that he committed bank fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 1344.

The Affidavit in Support of the Criminal Complaint alleges that, in 2009 and 2010, Morgovsky used the name Gary Piper as a straw purchaser in the short sale of two condominiums in Hawaii for the benefit of his associate Mark Migdal who owned the properties and owed money on mortgages. Gary Piper died in 1969 at the age of 16.  Morgovsky transacted business, obtained false identification and opened bank accounts in the name of Gary Piper.

The Affidavit further alleges that, after the sale of the properties to Morgovsky, they remained under the control of Migdal,  For intstance, Midghal continued to collect the rent on the properties and transferred money to the Gary Piper account each month preceding the payment of Homeowner’s Association payments on the condominiums.  In 2016, Morgovsky transferred the properties to Migdal’s wife, using her maiden name.  The escrow instructions in one transaction stated “There will be no funds exchanged between the parties in connection with this escrow transaction.  Said consideration amount will be reimbursed to the buyer in full satisfaction of an unsecured note between the parties.”  The escrow instructions in the other transaction stated “Property is sold at the same price as it was purchased to seller a prom note.”    Four months later, Migdal’s wife transferred the properties to the Migdal family trust.

The conduct underlying the complaint was discovered by the SA during the investigation of Morgovsky and his wife for the unlawful export of night vision equipment that is controlled for export pursuant to the United States Munitions List and Commerce Control LiIst.

Morgovsky’s arraignment is scheduled for September 19, 2016.

Jennifer McTigue, 48, Honolulu, Hawaii pled guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering, as well as committing wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. McTigue pled guilty in federal district court before Senior District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall a day after jury selection for her trial was to have commenced.

In connection with her guilty plea, McTigue, who is representing herself and identifies herself as a “private non-citizen American national” stated:

“I feel I must take responsibility for people being damaged and that’s why I’m here today to plead guilty.”

Documents filed by McTigue in the court case had caused the Judge to order that she undergo a competency evaluation.

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Trial delayed for fraud suspect

The trial for a woman who was allegedly involved in a $3 million real estate scheme is on hold after the judge halted proceedings for the day Monday.

Jennifer Ann McTigue is accused of defrauding new homeowners, title companies and banks in a complex investment scheme.

The Homeowner Legal Assistance Association (HLAA), a Florida corporation, has allegedly misled hundreds of distressed homeowners facing foreclosure in Hawaii by a loan modification program operated by HLAA for approximately 17 months in 2009 and 2010.

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The public is being warned about an email scam from someone posing as a real estate agent.

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Jennifer McTigue, 46, and Sakara Blackwell, a/k/a: Dawn Sakaguchi, 38, both of Honolulu, Hawaii, were arraigned in United States District Court after a federal grand jury returned a forty-five (45) count indictment against them and Marc Melton, 43, for fraud, money laundering and other offenses relating to a debt elimination scheme to defraud lending institutions, buyers of real property and escrow companies through a process of filing fraudulent mortgage release documents with the Hawaii Bureau of Conveyances.

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Michelle Malufau, 47, Laie, Oahu, was found guilty by a federal jury of bankruptcy fraud related to the Chapter 7 bankruptcy that she filed in 2011.

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