Several criminal cases against mortgage insiders involve the theft of loan files, the fraudulent use of a warehouse line-of-credit and embezzlement. One defendant plead guilty, while two others have been sentenced to prison.
Jason Alan Tauer pled guilty on Jan. 29 to stealing 93 loan files and data on 208 more people from Ameriquest Mortgage, a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Minnesota said. Tauer worked at Ameriquest as a mortgage assistant from March 2005 to April 2005.
In addition to allegedly stealing the identification data, he is accused of stealing items from gym lockers. Tauer used the stolen IDs to fraudulently obtain cash, services and other valuables. He was able to extract more than $30,000 from one credit card he obtained.
Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler issued a Jan. 28 statement indicating that David Young Park was effectively sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay $116,556 in restitution. Park, the former president of Capital City Financial Group in Ellicott City, Md., plead guilty to stealing the loan proceeds from a refinance transaction on a commercial condominium.
Park, who spent the cash on personal and business expenses over a two-week period, and Capital City were never reportedly licensed to originate loans in the state.
A preliminary hearing was waived for Kristine L. Brown, who is accused of stealing $29,000 from her former employer, Mortgage Network Solutions, the Reading Eagle reported. The 56-year-old defendant, who lives in Laureldale, Pa., was fired by the Delaware-based firm in August 2008 after a criminal probe started four months earlier led to charges that she re-directed appraisal fee checks to accounts she controlled.
The former president of First Fidelity Mortgage Inc., William Everett Nichols, was sentenced to six years in federal prison and ordered to pay $4 million in restitution, a news release Thursday from the U.S. Department of Justice said. The company, which did business as Southern Funding, closed in April 2009, according to one online source.
Nichols, who plead guilty in November, allegedly took the proceeds from a warehouse line-of-credit and provided fake notes to the warehouse lender — Sabine State Bank. In all, Nichols fraudulently collected $2.9 million.
