United States Attorney A. Brian Albritton has announced that U.S. District Judge Henry Lee Adams Jr. has sentenced Barry C. Westergom of Jacksonville, Fla. to four years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud. The court also ordered restitution in the amount of $866,141.62 and entered a money judgment for $100,000, the amount that Westergom had obtained from the fraud. Westergom had pleaded guilty on Oct. 8, 2009.Read more

A Rainbow City, Ala. woman has pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of bank and mortgage fraud that totaled more than $500,000, U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance and FBI Special Agent in Charge Patrick Maley announced. Roxanne Saunders Gilliland entered guilty pleas before U.S. District Judge C. Lynwood Smith Jr., to one count of making false statements on a mortgage loan application and three counts of bank fraud. She agreed to forfeit $577,796 to the government as proceeds of illegal activity.Read more

Nora R. Dannehy, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that Anna McElaney, a licensed real estate agent residing in Norwalk, Conn., has pleaded guilty before United States Magistrate Judge Holly B. Fitzsimmons in Bridgeport, Conn. to one count of bank fraud stemming from her involvement in a “short sale” mortgage fraud scheme. A short sale transaction involves a mortgage holder or lender entering into an agreement to release its mortgage or lien on real property in exchange for payment of less than the total amount owed on the underlying debt.Read more

A federal grand jury in San Francisco has indicted Michael Ohayon and David Papera with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and money laundering, United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced. According to the indictment, Ohayon and Papera are alleged to have recruited 13 straw buyers who used their good credit scores to obtain more than $19.6 million in fraudulent residential mortgage loans from Washington Mutual Bank, with no intention of making either downpayments or mortgage payments on the properties.Read more

The former president of Mortgage One Corporation in Hesperia, Calif. was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for defrauding the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) and private lenders by fraudulently obtaining hundreds of federally insured loans and selling those mortgages to private lenders in a scheme that caused tens of millions of dollars in losses to the federal housing agency.Read more

A former California-licensed real estate appraiser was sentenced to three years in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $46 million in restitution for her role in a massive mortgage fraud scheme that caused tens of millions of dollars in losses to federally insured banks. Lila Rizk of Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. received the three-year prison term after her conviction last summer on conspiracy, bank fraud and numerous loan fraud charges.Read more

Jeffrey L. Levin of Atlanta, pleaded guilty in federal district court to causing materially false entries that overvalued bank assets to be made in the books, reports and statements of Omni National Bank. Acting United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said, “This case demonstrates the damage that can result when senior bank officials ignore rules and regulations designed to protect a bank by identifying problem loans.Read more

Brent Merriell of Atlanta has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of aggravated identity theft and false statements to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), waived his detention hearing today before United States Magistrate Judge Russell G. Vineyard, and has been immediately detained. The indictment charging Merriell was filed on Dec.Read more

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has announced the filing of a five-count Indictment charging two attorneys, Dustin Dente and Brandon Lisi, with a scheme to defraud various lending institutions by using straw buyers to obtain over $3.9 million in home mortgage loans that they then stole for their personal use. Both defendants were previously charged in a criminal complaint and arrested on Oct. 15, 2009.

As alleged in the Indictment filed in Manhattan federal court and the previously filed criminal complaint:Read more

Preet Bhara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Joseph M. DeMarest Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Richard H.Read more