Judy “Miu Wan” Yeung was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, eight counts of wire fraud, and three counts of witness tampering by a federal jury, United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced. The jury, after deliberating for one day, found that Yeung engaged in a mortgage fraud conspiracy between approximately December 2004 and January 2007. Yeung, together with two mortgage brokers, recruited five individuals to submit loan applications in their names in order to obtain loans totaling more than $6.5 million.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

Minh-Vu Hoang of Bethesda, Md. has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee in connection with a scheme to conceal millions in profits earned from the purchase and sale of foreclosure properties. The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge C.Read more

Four participants in an extensive mortgage fraud scheme that affected 210 residential properties, including 205 in Montgomery County, have been sentenced in federal court by U.S. District Judge Michael R. Barrett. Carter M. Stewart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Keith L. Bennett, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation; Jose Gonzalez, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, and other members of the Dayton Mortgage Fraud Task Force announced the sentences handed down by U.S. District Judge Michael A.Read more

A federal grand jury here has indicted six members of a family and one of their employees charging them with operating a mortgage fraud conspiracy between 2004 and 2009. Carter M. Stewart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Keith L. Bennett, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Jose A. Gonzalez, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, and Gerald A. O’Farrell, Assistant Inspector in Charge, announced the indictment returned against the following individuals:Read more

The Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Vermont stated that Benjamin Osmanson of California, the former operator of the Highgate Manor, in Highgate, Vt., was sentenced to nine years in prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release, and ordered to pay over $12 million in restitution during an appearance before the Hon. J. Garvan Murtha in federal court in Brattleboro, Vt.Read more

The former chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Homestore.com has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to commit securities fraud through a scheme that artificially inflated the company's online advertising revenue to make the publicly traded company appear to be more profitable to Wall Street analysts.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

A federal grand jury sitting in Eugene, Ore., has returned indictments against 13 individuals on a variety of mortgage and loan fraud charges arising out of the collapse of Desert Sun Development (DSD), a company previously headquartered in Bend, Ore. From 2004 through 2008, DSD built commercial buildings and residential housing throughout Central Oregon. According to the indictments, DSD principals and other defendants caused financial institutions to lose more than $19 million. In total, five separate indictments were returned.Read more