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 Downey, Calif. woman who orchestrated a real estate fraud scheme that caused nearly $13 million in losses after falsely promising to help homeowners in default on their mortgages has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. A second person involved in the scheme was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in prison after a federal judge determined that he had refused to account for proceeds of the scheme in an off-shore bank account that he had agreed in his plea agreement to repatriate.Read more

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Joseph M. Demarest Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), have announced the unsealing of an indictment charging Louis Cherico, a lawyer who practiced in New York City and Westchester County, with participating in a wide-ranging scheme to commit mortgage fraud, obstruction of justice, and money laundering.

According to the Indictment filed in Manhattan federal court:Read more

A Long Beach, Calif. man who operated a number of ventures that he used to solicit money with false claims of profitable investments in real estate has pleaded guilty to a federal wire fraud charge. Jon Weldon James pleaded guilty to the federal offense related to his Ponzi scheme that collected more than $33 million from his El Segundo-based venture that operated under a series of names, including J.W. James and Associates Inc., and The Cloaking Device Inc.Read more

A two-year investigation by the Greater Cincinnati Mortgage Fraud Task Force has resulted in a seven-count indictment charging two Cincinnati area home builders, a former Huntington National Bank vice president, and a self-employed tax preparer and interior designer with participating in a mortgage fraud scheme to sell four high-end luxury properties to “straw buyers.” A straw buyer is someone who is listed as the owner of a house, but is not really the one buying the house.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

Six Louisiana individuals face various federal charges involving fraud against the Louisiana Road Home Program following Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force investigations, announced U. S. Attorney Jim Letten. Jacqueline Foreman-Pottinger, a resident of Metairie, La., was charged via a Bill of Information with one count of theft of government funds. According to the Bill, Pottinger applied for and received a Road Home Grant of $148, 078.80 for a rental property she owned on Florida Boulevard in New Orleans.Read more

The Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry (NMLS), a mortgage licensing system owned and operated by state financial regulators, will begin processing federal criminal background checks for mortgage loan originators starting Jan. 25, 2010. All individuals applying for a mortgage loan originator license through NMLS on or after this date will be required to submit fingerprints to NMLS and request a national criminal history background check with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as part of the application process.Read more