A citizen of Ghana has been charged in federal court with wire fraud involving millions of dollars for selling at least 16 condominium units to straw buyers who he recruited for the purpose of obtaining mortgage loans based on false loan applications. United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; Richard DesLauriers, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Boston Field Division; Robert Bethel, Postal Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Boston Division; and Steven D. Ricciardi, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S.Read more

A federal grand jury in Baltimore indicted John Stewart Morrison IV of Columbia, Md., on two counts of mail fraud and indicted Clifford Michael Seibert of Berlin, Md., and Seibert’s company, Modular Homes Wholesaler Inc. on two counts of wire fraud in connection with a mortgage fraud scheme. Each indictment also seeks the forfeiture of the proceeds of the scheme, alleged to be $431,317 for Morrison and $363,808 for Seibert.Read more

Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; Henry Gutierrez, Postal Inspector in Charge, U.S. Postal Inspection Service; John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office; and J. Thomas Cardwell, Commissioner, State of Florida Office of Financial Regulation, have announced that defendant John Fisher of Jupiter, Fla., has plead guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and to one count of substantive mail fraud.Read more

The United States Attorney’s Office has announced that John R. Steffen was indicted on fraud charges involving his scheme to defraud The Business Bank of St. Louis by pledging Brownfield Remediation Tax Credits as collateral on a loan, and selling them to use the proceeds for other projects. According to the indictment, Steffen is in the business of construction of residential and commercial real estate as well as the rehabilitation and development of commercial real estate primarily in the St. Louis area.Read more

United States Attorney Bill Nettles announced that Kimberly O. McAbee of Woodruff, S.C., has been sentenced in federal court in Greenville, S.C., for embezzling bank funds, a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 656. Senior United States District Judge G. Ross Anderson Jr. sentenced McAbee to 24 months' imprisonment. Evidence presented at the change of plea hearing established that from 1988 until December 2009, McAbee worked at Arthur State Bank in Woodruff, S.C.Read more

Acting United States Attorney Robert S. Cessar has announced that Dean Ackinclose, a resident of Clairton, Pa., has pleaded guilty in federal court to a charge of wire fraud conspiracy. Ackinclose has pled guilty to one count before United States District Judge Terrence McVerry.Read more

Two indictments of 13 Oahu residents and one from the state of Washington on mortgage fraud related charges have been unsealed with the arrests of 10 of the 14 defendants. A federal grand jury had returned the indictments on Aug. 11, 2010, but they had remained sealed. One indictment charged 10 defendants in 56 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, and false statements on loan applications, while the other named four defendants in 33 counts of the same nature. The 14 named defendants are:Read more

Two Prior Lake, Minn. men have pleaded guilty in federal court in Minneapolis for their roles in a scheme that defrauded mortgage lenders out of more than $2.5 million by causing them to make loans based on false information. Appearing before United States District Court Judge David S. Doty, Beau Wesley Gensmer pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering in connection to that crime. Christopher Glenn Kennedy pleaded guilty to the same charges on Aug. 6, 2010. Gensmer and Kennedy were indicted on April 21, 2010.Read more

Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has announced that David Ramnauth, former president of GuyAmerican Funding Corporation, a mortgage brokerage firm in Queens, N.Y., has pled guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud. Ramnauth was charged in a Superseding Indictment along with eight other defendants for their participation in a scheme that defrauded banks out of more than $23 million in home mortgage loans.Read more

Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office, announced that Diego L. Siman of Miami, Fla., has been sentenced  to 84 months’ imprisonment by United States District Judge James I. Cohn, after having previously pled guilty to committing wire fraud. According to court documents, Siman sought potential investors interested in purchasing properties that were allegedly soon to be in foreclosure.Read more