A federal jury in Greenbelt, Maryland, has convicted a husband/wife team of real estate fraud. Patricia Omondi, age 39, and her husband Boureima Sanfo, age 47, both of Woodbridge, Virginia, were convicted in late-April on eight (8) counts of interstate transportation of property obtained by fraud, three counts of money laundering, and one count of obstruction of justice in connection with a scheme to defraud residential lot buyers.

According to testimony presented during April trial, Omondi was the president of Raycha Homes, also known as Construction Consulting and Management (CCM), a home builder located in Woodbridge, Virginia. Sanfo was a loan officer for CCM. From November 2004 to December 2005, Omondi and Sanfo met with consumers and promised to build homes for them on the lots of their choice. Omondi and Sanfo drove people to view several parcels of land in Prince George’s County to select the lot, provided copies of design drawings of homes, provided fictitious letters on the letterhead of a mortgage company falsely representing that the individuals had been pre-approved for mortgages and falsely stated that CCM had obtained permits to begin construction of their houses.

The evidence showed that Omondi and Sanfo caused individuals to enter into contracts with CCM for the construction and purchase of a house and to make regular payments towards the down payment. However, no homes were ever constructed, nor were any lots purchased. Under this scheme, Omondi and Sanfo obtained more than $200,000 from at least seven victims, which they deposited in their bank account in Virginia.

According to trial testimony, in October 2006, Omondi and Sanfo obstructed a grand jury investigation into whether the defendants were committing fraud in connection with their home building operations by providing the grand jury with studies that had purportedly been done in 2005 regarding the feasibility of constructing houses on lots selected by purchasers, when in fact the feasibility studies were completed in September 2006.

Omondi and Sanfo face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine for each of the 12 counts. U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow has scheduled sentencing for both Omondi and Sanfo on September 5, 2008.