The promise of debt reduction lures in unsuspecting borrowers who fork over thousands of dollars in up-front fees to criminals that never deliver lower or eliminated loan balances. In some cases, defendants take the scheme to the next level by using mortgage fraud to strip equity from the properties involved.
California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris announced that Ronald Vernon Cupp, Randall Gilbert Heyden and Angelle Wertz were arrested on Jan. 23 in connection with a bogus debt-elimination scheme. A 57-count felony complaint was filed in superior court.
The state claims that the defendants operated six websites that promised to eliminate their mortgages — though all they did was delay foreclosures by recording fraudulent documents. Up-front fees ranged from $1,000 to $10,000.
The state is redirecting traffic from six websites operated by the defendants to the California attorney general’s website.
A no contest plea to 10 felonies was extracted from Gary Dimattia on March 6, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto announced.
Dimattia peddled balance-reduction services through his company, Financial Link Services. The program promised distressed negative-equity borrowers that investors would come in and purchase properties at market value then refinance the loans at the lower balances. Dimattia collected between $3,495 and $3,895 for his services.
But although Dimattia promised a full refund if he wasn’t successful in obtaining a principal reduction and refinance — he took the fees and failed to keep his promises. He faces up to 110 years in prison when he is sentenced in Clark County District Court on Sept.5.
Six New Jersey residents — Adam Lacerda, Ashley R. Lacerda, Ian Resnick, Steven Cox, Francis Santore and Joseph Diventi — were charged in a 44-count superseding indictment on Jan. 23, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey. Also charged were out-of-state residents Alfred Giordano, Brian Corley, Joseph Saxon and Genevieve Manzoni.
The 10 defendants allegedly operated a timeshare mortgage fraud scheme, The Vacation Ownership Group, which was also known as VO Group LLC, promised borrowers that they could reduce the principal balances by as much as half by sending their payments to The Vacation Ownership Group to process the payments. Some borrowers were also convinced to send buyout fees to the defendants.
But the funds were never forwarded on to the lenders and instead kept by the defendants. In all, 225 victims were identified who lost more than $3 million.
On Jan. 30, former Vacation Ownership Group employee Eric Reilly pled guilty.
Wesley Alvin Snyder was sentenced in 2008 to more than a decade in prison for operating an accelerated paydown program for mortgages that lost participating borrowers more than $25 million. U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane on Jan. 25 denied Snyder’s request to have his 2007 guilty plea and 12-year prison sentence overturned so he could go to trial instead, the Reading Eagle reported.
