Brent Merriell of Atlanta, Ga. has been sentenced by United States District Judge Jack T. Camp to federal prison on charges of making false statements to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and aggravated identity theft. Merriell was sentenced to three years and three months in prison to be followed by five years of supervised release.
“The FDIC serves a critical role by insuring the assets of hard-working Americans," said United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates. "Mr. Merriell used stolen identities, created fictitious buyers, and negotiated phony short sale deals for properties, all in an effort to defraud FDIC of millions of dollars he owed on mortgages. This double fraud has landed him in federal prison.”
Merriell allegedly obtained millions of dollars in loans from Omni National Bank as mortgages on numerous properties. Omni later failed and was taken over by the FDIC. Beginning in October 2009, Merriell faced foreclosure on 14 different properties subject to Omni mortgages. In response, Merriell asked the FDIC to forgive $2.2 million in loan payments and instead allow him to “short sell” the properties to seven new purchasers at significantly reduced amounts. The seven new purchasers, however, were phony, as the seven names Merriell presented to the FDIC were, in fact, stolen identities whose names were forged on sales contracts and counterfeit loan commitment letters. Under this scheme, if law enforcement had not intervened, Merriell would have retained control of the properties, and could then rent them for amounts in excess of the substantially reduced mortgage payment, or resell them at a profit.
A “short sale” occurs when a lender such as Omni Bank agrees to the sale of property—on which the current owner has defaulted—to a third party for less than the full amount due on the loan. Lenders are willing to accept “short sales” as a means of mitigating their losses on troubled loans. The Merriell short sale fraud was discovered through a sting operation conducted by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) with the assistance of the FDIC.
For more information, visit http://atlanta.fbi.gov.
