|
Defendant
|
Plaintiff
|
Court
|
Amount
|
Overview
|
Case Title |
Case Number
|
Date Filed |
Link to StoryLink to Story |
| Joseph Kohen |
United States |
United States District Court for the District of New Jersey |
$22,700,000 |
Joseph Kohen was sentenced to 30 months in prison and to pay $22.7 million in restitution for his role in a $25 million fraud scheme against PNC Bank. Kohen misrepresented himself as an attorney for PNC borrower Solomen Dwek and provided a copy of a fraudulent $25 million check. The deception enabled Dwek to complete another transaction and ultimately cost the bank more than $20 million in losses. |
United States v. Kohen |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp |
| Michael Hoskisson |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
Michael Hoskisson has been sentenced to five years of probation after admitting that he deceived Lester Carroll into signing over a power of attorney to him. Additionally, Hoskisson will not be able to take out any loans, work in a financial position or trust, or be involved with any real estate transactions. |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp |
| Karim Walthour Lawrence |
United States |
United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Atlanta Division |
$600,000 |
Former Omni National Bank vice president was sentenced on June 1st after pleading guilty to taking $600,000 in bribes. |
United States v. Karim Walthour Lawrence |
1:10-cr-00476WBH |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal061711.asp |
| Peter L. Cash |
United States |
United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama |
$9,626,414 |
Defendant, a former director at Peoples Bank of Coffee County, has been sentenced to 58 months in prison for allegedly kiting $8,123,738 in checks between several banks during the period between October 2005 and July 2008. He is also accused of forging a document on a $1,502,676 business loan. |
United States v. Peter L. Cash |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal061711.asp |
| Angelena Pena |
n/a |
n/a |
$250,000 |
Angelena Pena, a former branch manager at Nickeloid Employees Credit Union, pled guilty to one count of financial institution fraud. Pena admitted that although she was approved in 2009 for an $86,900 home-equity loan from her employer, she altered documents and inflated the HEL to $250,000 to support a gambling problem. |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp |
| Adrian Carroll |
United States |
United States District Court District of South Carolina |
$1,000 |
Carroll is charged with embezzling over $1,000 from her former employer, Carolina First Bank, between September 2008 and May 2009. |
United States v. Adrian Carroll |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal061711.asp |
| Michael Ho Kim |
n/a |
n/a |
$1,000,000 |
Michael Ho Kim is accused of stealing more than $1 million from borrowers who whose loans were serviced by his former employer, Bank of America. Kim was also sued by Robin and Frances Kaneshiro over a soured real estate deal. |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal061711.asp |
| Leonid Shifrin |
United States |
United States District Court for the District of Colorado |
$4,700,000 |
Leonid Shifrin, a mortgage broker in Aurora, Colorado, who operated under the name Consumer Mortgage Group, admitted that he hid more than $4.7 million in loan commissions from the IRS. He could be sentenced to up to three years in prison. |
U.S. v. Shifrin |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp |
| Phil Coon |
n/a |
n/a |
$1,200,000 |
Guilty plea awating sentencing. |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/MctCoastBank060311.asp |
| Aquilino Hernandez |
People of the State of California |
Superior Court, Ventura County, California |
n/a |
Defendant was charged with two counts of foreclosure consultant fraud under California Civ. Code § 2945.4(a) for allegedly operating a foreclosure rescue scheme that targeted distressed Spanish-speaking borrowers through his business, Terra Bella Management. |
People v. Hernandez |
n/a |
06/21/11 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationForeclosureFirms063011.asp |
| Charles C. Jamison |
United States |
United States District Court for the Eastern District of California |
n/a |
On May 10, 2011, Jamison was sentenced to 32 months in prison after pleading guilty to bankruptcy fraud charges in February for his part in a scheme where he collected up-front fees to use the bankruptcy process to fraudulently delay foreclosures on residential properties through a program called “Stop Now.” |
United States v. Charles C. Jamison |
1:11-CR-028-LKK |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationForeclosureFirms063011.asp |
| Edward G. McCusker, Jacqueline McCusker, Jeffrey A. Bennett, Stephen G. Doherty and John Bariana |
United States |
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
$14,600,000 |
Defendants were accused of promising financially distressed homeowners that they would find an investor to help them save their homes, then arranging for a straw purchaser to obtain a fraudulent mortgage and transferring the title of the homeowners’ residences to the straw purchaser. The McCusker defendants were convicted on June 21, 2011 of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, six counts of wire fraud and three counts of mail fraud in the $14.6 million case. Co-defendants Bennet, Doherty and Bariana already pled guilty and are awaiting sentencing. |
United States v. Edward McCusker et al. |
2:09-cr-00771-MAM |
12/08/09 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationForeclosureFirms063011.asp |
| Gennaro Rauso |
United States |
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
n/a |
Defendant was convicted and sentenced to 160 months in prison on various counts of fraud. Through his company, D&B Property Investors, Rauso promised to help delinquent borrowers sidestep foreclosures and improve their credit at the same time by transferring title to him and becoming renters. Instead, Rauso kept the rental payments-ultimately leaving the borrowers with foreclosed properties. |
United States v. Gennaro Rauso |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationForeclosureFirms063011.asp |
| Kathleen Harps |
United States |
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia |
n/a |
Defendant was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 21 on one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, three counts of mail fraud and three counts of engaging in unlawful monetary transactions based on allegations that while operating a foreclosure rescue service, Harps convinced distressed borrowers to sell their homes based on promises to let them stay in the houses and buy back the properties after getting their finances in order. Instead, Harps and the buyers she lined up allegedly obtained fraudulent mortgages on the properties, stripped the equity in the loans, and let the loans go into foreclosure. |
United States v. Kathleen Harps |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationForeclosureFirms063011.asp |
| Kevin O’Keefe |
United States |
United States District Court for the District of Connecticut |
n/a |
A former executive at Bank of America Corp. was sentenced to one day in prison and three years of supervised release after he pled guilty to conspiring with an attorney and a developer to rig the auction of distressed loans. |
U.S. v. O’Keefe |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/MctSentenceKevinOkeefe041311.asp |
| George M. Eggleston |
United States |
United States District Court for the Eastern District of California |
$364,899 |
Defendant was sentenced to 81 months for promising to help distressed borrowers avoid foreclosure by fraudulently representing that his companies, Nexxus and Global Legal Associates, used and managed attorneys to file lawsuits against foreclosing lenders for violations of state and federal laws. |
United States v. George M. Eggleston |
1:10-CR-00248-LJO |
06/10/10 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationForeclosureFirms063011.asp |
| Lender Processing Services, Inc., DocX, Fidelity National Financial Inc., and CT Corporation |
Attorney General of California, Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General of Illinois, Lisa Madigan, and Attorney General of Michigan, Bill Schuette |
n/a |
n/a |
Criminal subpoena issued. Attorneys General in California, Illinois and Michigan have issued subpoenas against LPS. Schuette wants to look at documents used in the firms’ foreclosure and bankruptcy document-processing operations as an expansion of an investigation into “allegations of forged mortgage documents” filed with the register of deeds offices in Michigan that began in April. |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LpsSupoenaes061511.asp |
| Ronald Johannes Sneijder |
United States |
United States District Court for the District of Columbia |
$1,837,000 |
An indictment was unsealed May 17 against Defendant, who owned closing services provider Red Box Settlements. Sneijder allegedly obtained a $581,000 home-equity line-of-credit from Wells Fargo Bank on his Washington, D.C. residence in January 2004. Then in February 2005, he obtained a$581,000 refinance loan from First Savings Mortgage Corp. without first paying off the HELOC. He took out additional advances and another $675,000 loan from Wachovia Bank, which also required that he pay off the HELOC. Defendant defaulted, the house went into foreclosure and the sale price was nowhere near enough to pay off the $1,829,000 in accumulated liens. |
United States v. Ronald Johannes Sneijder |
n/a |
05/17/11 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal061711.asp |
| Michael Lee Wilson |
The People of the State of California |
The Superior Court, State of California, For the County of Santa Barbara, Santa Maria Division |
$14,000,000 |
Michael Lee Wilson, owner of Pacific Coast Mortgage, was arrested in 2009 over allegations that he deceived elderly investors and committed mortgage fraud. Wilson has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. |
California v. Wilson |
No. 09-07-225191 |
07/10/09 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp |
| Jerry J. Williams, Francesco “Frank” Mileto, Thomas Hebble and Angel Guerzon |
United States |
United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida |
$82,000,000 |
A grand jury returned an indictment against Jerry J. Williams. He was the president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board of Orion Bancorp, Inc., and the former Orion Bank, a federally insured financial institution, that was headquartered in Naples, Florida. The indictment alleges that Williams orchestrated a complex conspiracy to fraudulently raise capital and falsify bank records in order to mislead state and federal regulators as to the bank’s true financial condition. |
U.S. v. Williams |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp |
| Kenneth T. Robinson |
United States |
United States District Court for the District of New Jersey |
$32,000,000 |
Robinson, a mortgage broker and acquisitions attorney, admitted to conspiring with two others to invest more than $109 million over the past 17 years in an insider trading scheme which netted more than $32 million in illicit profits. |
U.S. v. Robinson |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/MctPleaInsider041211.asp |
| Donald E. Dodge and Scott Farah |
United States |
United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire |
n/a |
Dodge received a six-year sentence for operating an unlicensed loan servicing company, C L and M Inc., which serviced all loans brokered through Financial Resources Mortgage Inc., owned by Scott Farah, who also pleaded guilty and received 15 year sentence |
United States v. Scott Farah and Donald Dodge |
1:10-CR-44-PD-01/02, LR021837 |
04/01/10 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/financialresources041711.asp |
| Jeffrey L. Levine, Delroy Oliver Davey, Christopher Bernard Loving, Brent Merriel |
United States |
United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Atlanta Division |
$6,761,791 |
In April, former Omni executive vice president Jeffrey L. Levine, convicted on Jan. 14, 2010, was sentenced to five years in prison and fined $6,761,791. Delroy Oliver Deavy was sentenced to 14 months, Christopher Bernard Loving received a sentence of probation in August 2010 and Brent Merriel was given a more than three year sentence in August 2010. |
United States v. Jeffrey L. Levine, et al. |
1:09-CR-00554-JOF |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal061711.asp |
| Joseph Mazella |
United States |
United States District Court Eastern District of New York |
$12,000,000 |
Defendant was arrested on April 21 , 2011, on charges of securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering for allegedly soliciting over $12 million from investors for investments that he told them would be secured by mortgages on real estate projects. Instead, he used investor funds to pay personal expenses-including payments for a Porsche, a mortgage on his personal residence and family expenses. |
United States v. Mazella |
11-cr-00300 |
04/21/11 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationInvestor062911.asp |
| Donna Shebetich |
United States |
United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania |
n/a |
Shebetich pleaded guilty in June to filing a false report to bank regulators. Shebetich was vice president, director and loan officer for Metropolitan Savings Bank when she filed five reports in 2005 and 2006 that understated how many of the bank’s mortgages had gone delinquent. The government estimates that the FDIC and 24 individuals whose deposits weren’t entirely covered by FDIC insurance lost more than $10.2 million. |
United States v. Shebetich |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/MctPleaMetropolitan061511.asp |
| Raymond Bowman |
United States |
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia |
$2,900,000,000 |
Raymond Bowman was sentenced to 40 months for one count of conspiracy to commit bank, wire and securities fraud, and one count of false statements for his role in a more than $2.9 billion fraud scheme that contributed to the failures of Colonial Bank and Taylor, Bean & Whitacker. |
U.S. v. Bowman |
1:11-cr-118-LMB |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/SentenceFarkas063011.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/TaylorBeanSentenceCeo062111.asp |
| Teresa Kelly |
United States |
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia |
$2,900,000,000 |
Teresa Kelly, former operations supervisor for Colonial Bank’s warehouse lending division, pled guilty to knowingly and intentionally placing Colonial Bank and Colonial BancGroup at significant risk by causing them to purchase more than $400 million in assets that had no value. The fraud scheme caused Colonial Bank and Colonial BancGroup to purchase tens of millions of dollars of worthless assets, caused Colonial BancGroup to report false information in its financial statements, and artificially inflated the value of Taylor, Bean & Whitacker’s mortgage servicing rights. |
U.S. v. Kelly |
1:11-cr-119-LMB |
03/16/11 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/SentenceFarkas063011.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/TaylorBeanSentenceCeo062111.asp |
| Lee Farkas |
United States |
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia |
$2,900,000,000 |
30-year sentence for Farkas, the former chairman of Taylor, Bean & Whitacker Mortgage Corp., allegedly enabled the sale of $1.5 billion in fictitious and impaired mortgage loans to Colonial Bank. |
United States v. Farkas |
1:15:10-cr-mj-1028 |
06/15/10 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/SentenceFarkas063011.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/TaylorBeanSentenceCeo062111.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/taylorbeanconviction042011.asp |
| Catherine L. Kissick |
United States |
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia |
$2,900,000,000 |
Kissick sentenced to 8 years for assisting in carrying out a scheme involving $1.5 billion in fraudulent mortgages at Taylor, Bean & Whitacker Mortgage Corp. |
U.S. v. Kissick |
1:11-cr-88-LMB |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/SentenceFarkas063011.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/TaylorBeanSentenceCeo062111.asp, oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal061711.asp |
| Paul Allen |
United States |
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia |
$2,900,000,000 |
Paul Allen, a former chief executive officer of Taylor, Bean & Whitacker, was sentenced to 40 months for making false statements and conspiring to commit bank and wire fraud. The government claimed that when Allen failed to secure $50 million of $300 million needed to acquire Colonial Bank, Taylor Bean chairman Lee Farkas fraudulently moved $5 million into an escrow account set up in an investor’s name and tried to portray it as a required 10 percent escrow deposit. |
U.S. v. Allen |
1:11-cr-165-LMB |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/SentenceFarkas063011.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/TaylorBeanSentenceCeo062111.asp |
| Sean W. Ragland |
United States |
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia |
$2,900,000,000 |
Sean Ragland, a former Taylor, Bean & Whitacker senior financial analyst, sentenced to 3 months for conspiring to commit bank and wire fraud. Ragland reportedly learned of inadequate assets at Taylor Bean subsidiary Ocala Funding to back up commercial paper so he covered up the deficiency by providing false information to financial institution investors, other third parties, and an outside audit firm. |
U.S. v. Ragland |
1:11-cr-162-LMB |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/SentenceFarkas063011.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/TaylorBeanSentenceCeo062111.asp |
| Desiree Brown |
United States |
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia |
$2,900,000,000 |
Brown sentenced to 72 months for assisting in carrying out a scheme involving $1.5 billion in fraudulent mortgages at Taylor, Bean & Whitacker Mortgage Corp. |
U.S. v. Desiree Brown |
1:11-cr-00084 |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/SentenceFarkas063011.asp, oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/TaylorBeanSentences061011.asp |
| Peter Bakowski |
United States |
United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida |
$16,100,000 |
Mortgage broker sentenced to 15 years for mortgage fraud- selling same mortgage to multiple investors promising investors returns of 15-20 percent. |
United States v. Bakowski |
No. 8:09-CR-491-T-33TBM |
10/20/10 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/litigationsecondary051111.asp |
| Frank G. Debelius |
State of Maryland |
Hartford County Circuit Court in Maryland |
$8,500 |
Debelius was sentenced to 13 months in prison after pleading guilty of posing as a professional with Bay One Mortgage, allegedly collecting $8,500 from Clark and Cheryl Rorie in return for obtaining a $100,000 reduction in principal on their loan–though he did not and they lost their house. |
Maryland v. Frank G. Debelius |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal061711.asp |
| Michael Trap and Glenn Steven Rosofsky |
United States |
United States District Court Southern District of California |
$460,249 |
Trap was given a 30-month sentence and ordered to pay $460,249 in restitution to victims of his loan modification scheme. Trap and his co-defendant, Steven Rosofsky admitted that they fraudulently induced more than 300 customers to pay between $2,500 and $3,000 for modification services through Nations Housing Modification Center and Federal Housing Modification Department. |
United States v. Michael Trapp and United States v. Glenn Steven Rosofsky |
3:10-cr-0978BEN and 3:10-cr-0972BEN |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal061711.asp |
| Alex P. Soria |
United States |
United States District Court for the District of Nevada |
$17,000 |
Defendant, a Las Vegas resident, was charged in April for allegedly collecting $17,000 from 15 distressed borrowers for whom he promised to obtain foreclosure relief or loan modifications, even though he wasn’t licensed to do so. |
United States v. Alex P. Soria |
2:11-CR-00156-LDG-RJJ |
04/20/11 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationForeclosureFirms063011.asp |
| Edward Scott Hanson |
n/a |
n/a |
$274,000 |
Edward Hanson has pled guilty to tricking a borrower into taking out a reverse mortgage from Live Well Financial, his employer at the time, then collecting the payments himself. Hanson has been sentenced to seven years in prison and to pay restitution. |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp |
| Eric Murphy Jr. |
State of Maine |
Superior Court for Hancock County |
$358,000 |
Sentenced to 9 years for running investment scam relating to residential construction loans, Murphy has filed a motion for post-conviction review based on ineffective assistence of counsel |
State of Maine v. Murphy |
No. CR131 |
02/15/11 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/litigationsecondary051111.asp |
| Joseph Yorkus; James Bartczak |
State of Nevada |
n/a |
n/a |
Joseph Yorkus and James Bartczak are accused of trying to steal mortgage payments. Through Great Western Business Services, the two allegedly sent letters to borrowers falsely claiming to have acquired their mortgages from Bank of America. |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp |
| Julie Phillips |
United States |
United States District Court for the District of Vermont |
$100,000 |
Julie Phillips, a district manager who oversaw operations at six CitiFinancial branch offices in northern Vermont, pled not guilty in federal court to a bank fraud charge claiming she embezzled an estimated $100,000 from the institution between April 2009 and June 2010. |
U.S. v. Phillips |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp |
| Karen Harris, Denise O’Brock Kobus, Mike Scola, James Sims, Linda Warner, Gerald Spuzillo, Angela Pasternak, Terry Forbes, Gerald Stenikuehler, Dee Anne Shaw, David Mangriotis, Erin Foley, Kirk Porter, Uri Gofman |
The State of Ohio, Cuyahoga County |
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court |
$13,000,000 |
13 indicted, including nine former employees of a Citigroup Inc. subprime wholesale lending subsidiary. Among those indicted are underwriters, account managers and supervisors accused of colluding with appraisers, borrowers and mortgage brokers to fraudulently fund a hundred Ohio mortgages between 1999 and December 2008. |
Ohio v. Harris et al. |
CR 551555 |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/ArgentIndictments062711.asp |
| Jaime Lee Lawler, a/k/a Paige Kinney |
United States |
United States District Court District of Arizona |
$40,000,000 |
After her 2007 termination from Countrywide Home Loans, Lawler was hired by PRMI to work in their Phoenix branch. The DOJ alleges that while working there, she managed to fraudulently bill the company for $123,000 in mortgage leads. Lawler is also accused participating in a nearly $40 million mortgage fraud scheme. |
United States v. Jaime Lee Lawler, et al. |
CR-10-00796-PHX-NVW; CR-11-00491-PHX-NVW |
06/15/10 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal061711.asp |
| Kenneth A. Schneider |
United States |
United States District Court for the District of Montana |
$1,800,000 |
Kenneth Schneider has been ordered to pay restitution of $1.8 million for pocketing customer application fees for real estate bridge loans. |
U.S. v. Schneider |
n/a |
n/a |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal041211.asp |
| William Garfield Sandison, Ross William Sandison, Curtis Alan Martinson |
United States |
United States District Court District of Minnesota |
$30,000 |
Former chief executive officer of Community National Bank, William Garfield Sandison, was sentenced last month to four months in prison and ordered to pay a $30,000 fine, after reaching a plea agreement in October 2009. Defendant admitted that he fraudulently convinced 20 other banks to join his bank in financing the Ramsey Town Center for $35 million with another $15 million options. |
United States v. Sandison et al. |
n/a |
04/21/09 |
oldwww.mortgagedaily.com/LitigationCriminal061711.asp |
