A 56-year-old Rainbow City woman pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to charges of bank and mortgage fraud that totaled more than $500,000, U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance and FBI Special Agent in Charge Patrick Maley announced.

ROXANNE SAUNDERS GILLILAND entered guilty pleas before U.S. District Judge C. Lynwood Smith, Jr., to one count of making false statements on a mortgage loan application and three counts of bank fraud. She agreed to forfeit $577,796 to the government as proceeds of illegal activity.

According to GILLILAND’s plea agreement and other court documents, GILLILAND was an employee of Dawson Construction Company in Gadsden and, between March 2005 and October 2008, fraudulently withdrew the $577,796 from personal and business accounts connected to the company. Also, in April 2007, GILLILAND submitted a personal home mortgage application in which she claimed a business account of Dawson Construction as a personal asset in order to obtain a mortgage loan she would have been otherwise ineligible to receive.

“Any individual who commits both bank and mortgage fraud becomes a serious threat to our community. This defendant’s criminal fraud struck at both our local businesses and financial community. It is our mission to deal with these individuals swiftly and decisively in order to deter others from committing similar crimes,” Vance said.

The maximum sentence for counts one through four is 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

Special agents of the FBI investigated the case, which Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Carney is prosecuting for the government.

At 5 p.m. Friday, federal regulators filed into the 10 branches of La Jolla Bank FSB and closed it down.

A victim of the exploded commercial real estate bubble and possibly the perpetrator of loan fraud, the bank had 5,000 percent more capital in its outstanding commercial building and development loans than it had on hand to cover the debt, officials from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said.

“To put it mildly, that’s overextended,” said Greg Hernandez, a spokesman for the FDIC in Washington, D.C.

On Friday, OneWest Bank FSB entered into a deal with the FDIC to manage the loans and share the losses. It also took over La Jolla Bank’s $2.8 billion in deposits and its 10 branches in Southern California and Texas. On Monday, La Jolla Bank’s branches will open as OneWest, and depositors should see no difference in service, said Edith Gray, a spokeswoman for the FDIC, who was in Rancho Santa Fe Friday.

Founded in 1985 as La Jolla Village Bank, La Jolla Bank grew aggressively during the construction boom of the 2000s. From 2004 to 2007, the company doubled its assets by investing heavily in land, development and apartment construction.

But as the housing market fell precipitously starting in 2006, the bank began to have problems, the Office of Thrift Supervision said in a prepared statement. Of the $3.6 billion it lent, 21.6 percent was considered “non-performing” by the agency.

Gray said the bank may also have also been making fraudulent loans, but she said she couldn’t elaborate further. A spokesman for the Office of Thrift Supervision, which would oversee a fraud investigation, declined to comment.

The closure itself went smoothly, Gray said. Many of the bank’s employees have stayed on to work with regulators through the weekend. Officials have to wrap up any outstanding transactions in all branches to ensure an easy transition to OneWest. Even at the start, employees took the entrance of regulators calmly.

“There was no drama,” Gray said. “It’s been a very smooth transition.”

According to the indictment, Michael Ohayon, 41, and David Papera, 47, allegedly recruited thirteen straw buyers who used their good credit scores to nab $19.6 million in fraudulent mortgage loans from Washington Mutual Bank, with no intention of making either down payments or mortgage payments on the properties.

A mortgage broker and real estate developer on Friday were charged in San Francisco, California with conspiracy to commit a $19.6 million bank fraud, fraud, and money laundering, prosecutors said.

The indictment further alleges that Ohayon, with Papera’s knowledge, told the straw buyers that an entity controlled by Ohayon and Papera would use the loan proceeds to make the down payments and mortgage payments. Ohayon and Papera created and submitted to Washington Mutual Bank loan applications with numerous misstatements as to the straw buyers’ income and assets.

The maximum penalty for each count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and bank fraud is 30 years in prison, a $1,000,000.00 fine, and restitution. The maximum penalty for each count of money laundering is 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and restitution.

This case is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

F. Jeffrey Miller, the primary defendant in an alleged $25 million mortgage fraud scheme, has been acquitted by a federal jury.

A jury in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., on Friday said Miller was not guilty of 56 criminal counts of money laundering and bank fraud.

Miller was one of the top Kansas City-area home builders in 1999 and 2000. He and several others were charged in 2006 with falsifying loan documents to lenders on behalf of customers with credit problems who lacked enough money for down payments on homes. The scheme also involved fraudulently inflated appraisals on homes in the Kansas City area.

Some defendants had been dismissed from the original indictment; several others have pleaded guilty.

Jeffrey Morris, a Berkowitz Oliver Williams Shaw & Eisenbrandt LLP lawyer representing Miller, was not immediately available for comment.

This case is separate from another 2006 indictment against Miller. In 2008, he was convicted along with two others of conspiracy, bank fraud and money laundering for trying to continue to perpetrate his alleged fraud while under his original indictment for the $25 million fraud. A jury ordered Miller to forfeit $2.6 million in that case.

PROVIDENCE — A woman who has been sentenced to 46 months in federal prison will not, for now, have to pay restitution to the institutions that gave her financing that she then used in a $674,000 mortgage-fraud scheme.

Lisa Torres, formerly of Johnston, was sentenced in U.S. District Court, Providence, in December for conspiring to commit bank fraud. That sentence added 18 months to a prison term for a different case in which Torres, who had been a legal assistant, conspired with two former lawyers, John M. Cicilline and Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr., to shake down people accused of drug crimes in 2007. The three pleaded guilty in 2008.

The fraud scheme, in which Torres bought foreclosed properties at low prices and got others to take out mortgages to buy the homes from her at higher prices, happened while she was under indictment in the case involving Cicilline and Bevilacqua. Prosecutors have said Torres targeted friends and other people in the Dominican community.

At a restitution hearing Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee Vilker told U.S. Chief District Judge Mary M. Lisi that two financial institutions, MetLife and Bank of America, representing five of the nine properties, reported that none has been sold so there are no dollar figures to work with to try to calculate restitution.

“They are unable, at this time, to say what their losses will be,” Vilker told the judge, leaving no option for restitution at this time.

Financial institutions Wachovia, IndyMac Bank and CitiMortgage did not respond, Vilker said.

Lisi said she had to order no restitution but that, by federal law, if relevant financial institutions do come up with figures showing losses, they would have 60 days from that time to petition the court for restitution.

SAN FRANCISCO—Yesterday a federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted Michael Ohayon and David Papera with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering, United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced.

According to the indictment, Ohayon, 41, and Papera, 47, are alleged to have recruited thirteen straw buyers who used their good credit scores to obtain more than $19.6 million in fraudulent residential mortgage loans from Washington Mutual Bank, with no intention of making either down payments or mortgage payments on the properties. The indictment further alleges that Ohayon, with Papera’s knowledge, told the straw buyers that an entity controlled by Ohayon and Papera would use the loan proceeds to make the down payments and mortgage payments. Ohayon and Papera created and submitted to Washington Mutual Bank loan applications with numerous misstatements as to the straw buyers’ income and assets.

Ohayon and Papera are currently out of custody. They are scheduled to make their initial appearances on the indictment at 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 16, and Feb. 22, respectively, before the Honorable Maria-Elena James.

The maximum statutory penalty for each count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1349, and bank fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344, is 30 years’ imprisonment, a fine of $1,000,000, and restitution. The maximum statutory penalty for each count of money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957, is 10 years’ imprisonment, a fine of $250,000, and restitution. However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 3553.

Tracie L. Brown is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Rayneisha Booth. The prosecution is the result of a three-year investigation by IRS-CI and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Please note, an indictment contains only allegations against an individual and, as with all defendants, Messrs. Ohayon and Papera must be presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Solomon Dwek’s credibility is key in Beldini corruption trial Defense lawyer puts focus on deal failed mogul made

NEWARK - A federal jury’s answer to that question is likely to decide the fate of the government’s extortion and bribery case against suspended Jersey City deputy mayor Leona Beldini. Beldini, 74, is the first of the 44 people arrested in a July 2009 FBI public corruption and money-laundering sting to go to trial.

Dwek, 37, admitted career criminal, is the government’s witness. He spent almost five full days on the witness stand. At times stoic and subdued, at others angry and annoyed, and once moved nearly to tears, the disgraced land mogul who had ruled over a $400 million empire, testified before spectators that often included defense attorneys for others arrested in the FBI operation.

They heard him admit to bilking his uncle of $100 million in a real estate scheme and stealing millions more from a close family friend. They watched him choke up as he admitted under questioning that his mother and father are no longer his friends. They heard him admit to breaking several of the Ten Commandments.

But they also listened as he repeatedly contended that Beldini had only continued to meet with him because her motives were corrupt: she wanted the cash he was offering for Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy’s election campaign, and she wanted to be the exclusive real estate agent for the fictitious condominium complex Dwek claimed he was going to build.

“If she didn’t want to talk about it, she could have got up and left . . .,” Dwek responded testily to one series of questions from Beldini’s attorney, Brian J. Neary.

Neary implied that Beldini was simply too courteous to walk away from the meeting.

“She is courteous enough to simply talk to you. . .,” Neary said.

“And accept the money, yes,” Dwek shot back. “She was courteous for her own good, not for my own good.”

The government called only three other witnesses in the Beldini trial, while the defense presented no testimony at all. Should Beldini be acquitted, it is likely to encourage other defendants to take their chances at trial instead of agreeing to a plea deal.

The jury is expected to begin deliberations as early as Monday.

Posing as corrupt developer David Esenbach, Dwek wore a wire and secretly videotaped several meetings with Beldini, Healy, former Housing Commissioner Edward Cheatam and political consultant Jack Shaw. The black-and-white videotapes, along with wiretapped conversations from Shaw’s telephone, were the government’s key evidence at the trial.

Beldini is charged with funneling $20,000 in cash that Dwek gave to Cheatam and Shaw, into Healy’s 2009 mayoral campaign. Beldini served as campaign treasurer for Healy, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Under cross examination by Neary, Dwek admitted that he never gave Beldini any cash directly. But on one videotape, Dwek can be heard asking the deputy mayor if Mayor Healy knows that Dwek had given Cheatam and Shaw $10,000 in cash to secretly purchase tickets for a Healy fundraiser.

“The mayor knows, you know, where the tickets came from?” Dwek asks, adding “. . .He appreciates the way I do business, right?’ ” Dwek asks.

“Absolutely,” Beldini answers.

Shaw died of an overdose of Valium on July 28, five days after his July 23 arrest. Two more people have since been arrested in the case, 12 have so far pleaded guilty, including Cheatam, who admitted to taking about $70,000 from Dwek.

Dwek admitted under questioning by Neary that he did not initially know that Beldini’s $66,000-a-year job as deputy mayor was an appointed position, and that she had no vote and did not sit on the city’s planning or zoning boards.

He had been told by Cheatam and Shaw, he said, that Beldini was the mayor’s “right-hand man,” and Jersey City’s second-most powerful public official.

Dwek began cooperating with the FBI only months after he was arrested on $50 million in bank fraud charges in May 2006. During more than two years working undercover as a government informant, Dwek drove all over New Jersey and into New York City in a Lexus, meeting with public officials and Sephardic rabbis.

The $1,753 monthly rental and insurance fee for his car was paid for by the federal government, which also reimbursed him for tens of thousands of dollars he spent on mileage, meals, tolls and parking

The jury is expected to begin deliberations as early as Monday.

Posing as corrupt developer David Esenbach, Dwek wore a wire and secretly videotaped several meetings with Beldini, Healy, former Housing Commissioner Edward Cheatam and political consultant Jack Shaw. The black-and-white videotapes, along with wiretapped conversations from Shaw’s telephone, were the government’s key evidence at the trial.

Beldini is charged with funneling $20,000 in cash that Dwek gave to Cheatam and Shaw, into Healy’s 2009 mayoral campaign. Beldini served as campaign treasurer for Healy, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Under cross examination by Neary, Dwek admitted that he never gave Beldini any cash directly. But on one videotape, Dwek can be heard asking the deputy mayor if Mayor Healy knows that Dwek had given Cheatam and Shaw $10,000 in cash to secretly purchase tickets for a Healy fundraiser.

“The mayor knows, you know, where the tickets came from?” Dwek asks, adding “. . .He appreciates the way I do business, right?’ ” Dwek asks.

“Absolutely,” Beldini answers.

Shaw died of an overdose of Valium on July 28, five days after his July 23 arrest. Two more people have since been arrested in the case, 12 have so far pleaded guilty, including Cheatam, who admitted to taking about $70,000 from Dwek.

Dwek admitted under questioning by Neary that he did not initially know that Beldini’s $66,000-a-year job as deputy mayor was an appointed position, and that she had no vote and did not sit on the city’s planning or zoning boards.

He had been told by Cheatam and Shaw, he said, that Beldini was the mayor’s “right-hand man,” and Jersey City’s second-most powerful public official.

Dwek began cooperating with the FBI only months after he was arrested on $50 million in bank fraud charges in May 2006. During more than two years working undercover as a government informant, Dwek drove all over New Jersey and into New York City in a Lexus, meeting with public officials and Sephardic rabbis.

The $1,753 monthly rental and insurance fee for his car was paid for by the federal government, which also reimbursed him for tens of thousands of dollars he spent on mileage, meals, tolls and parking.

Atlanta’s downtrodden neighborhoods proved a gold mine for Omni National Bank and its founders, who amassed tens of millions of dollars’ worth of mansions, company stock and a private jet after launching an unusual bank that financed renovations of inner-city houses.

Four men in total were arrested of bank fraud in which they routinely doctored their records to hide losses, and a loan officer took kickbacks in return for doling out loans. Omni allowed people to “flip” houses three, four and even five times, artificially inflating their value, Georgia prosecutors said.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Ralph Roberts, a Macomb real estate broker and author of a book on mortgage fraud who tipped off authorities about the Omni National Bank case. “You’re going to be seeing more cases. When the economy suffers, people start to do bad things.”

Ralph Roberts, said people across the country told him they were victims of the scheme. “Everyone I talked to lost everything they put in,” said Roberts. “It wasn’t set up to make [them] money. It was set up to make inner-city real estate broker, Delroy Davy money.” Some related to Roberts that they were chauffeured around Atlanta on a tour bus that included a stop at Davy’s sprawling mansion.

Davy recruited “straw buyers” to obtain fraudulent loans. For years, Omni was a magnet for these so-called property flippers, some of whom made superficial repairs and then resold the homes at inflated prices.

Roberts, a Realtor from Macomb daily researches these cases involving mortgage fraud throughout North America, is aware of the rising frequency of fraud in the nation. His daily blog, FlippingFrenzy.com, from Macomb exposes hundreds of fraud cases. “I want families to understand one thing,” alerts Roberts. “Real estate fraud is not a victimless crime. The bank loses money. The seller loses money on the house. But, even more significantly, the entire community loses value, and ultimately, the tax base erodes.

“When people are trying to sell their homes and they have foreclosures on their street, it lowers their value and makes it harder to sell their home,” Roberts continued. “Some folks won’t buy into a neighborhood with foreclosed homes. This is the spreading ripple effect.”

Macomb County’s foreclosure expert was instrumental in exposing a mortgage fraud ring in 2008 and 2009 when four Michigan men were accused of mortgage fraud in which they illegally made more than $300,000 by selling two upscale homes at inflated values to a “straw buyer.”

The case, involved homes in Washington and Shelby townships that went into foreclosure, was part of a rising frequency of real estate fraud in Michigan and the nation, according to Roberts.

The growing problem prompted the Michigan Attorney General, Michael Cox and the Michigan State Police two years ago to form a mortgage fraud task force, which investigates these cases in our state.

Formally charged in 41B District Court in Clinton Township with racketeering, which carries a penalty of up to 20 years, and two counts each of false pretenses, a 10-year felony, were Dequincy Hyatt, 27, of Detroit, a managing partner in J.B.Homes and Construction; Seaesther Thompson-Hayes, 50, of Flat Rock, a mortgage broker; and Aaron Brooks Jr., 26, of Southgate, a former service representative for the People’s Trust Credit Union.

A fourth man, builder Pietro Biundo, 35, who built the Washington Township house and lived in the same subdivision, was charged in a warrant with a lesser degree of false pretenses but has not been formally charged.

In the Washington Township case, the Adams Drive home in Washington Pointe subdivision near 28 Mile and Mound roads initially listed for $679,000 but eventually dropped to $530,000.

The straw buyer obtained a mortgage for $785,000, $225,000 more than the asking price, according to Roberts. Investigators never determined amount taken or how the defendants used the additional $225,000.

Biundo reported on the deed that the home sold for $140,000, which drastically decreased the assessed value and surrounding property taxes.

In the Shelby Township case, defendants skimmed about $163,000 from the transaction in which a $510,000 home was sold for $710,000 to the same straw buyer, according to Cox.

Gina Patrona, who lives across the street from the Washington Township home, said the home was in “terrible shape” with no grass, window treatments or furniture. Together with a second foreclosed home nearby, her home’s property value was negatively affected.

“I don’t think we could sell our home for half of what we put into it,” she said Wednesday.

Cox in a prepared statement echoed the words of Ralph Roberts by pointing out the negative impact on the economy as a whole.

“The housing market, consumers and mortgage lenders suffer when scam artists limit the ability of law-abiding citizens to obtain loans,” Cox said. “With those loans, consumers would be buying a home or a car, something our economy desperately needs for recovery.”

The Atlanta Case Mirrors Detroit

“Such schemes have worsened the damage in some of Atlanta’s struggling neighborhoods,” said Brent Brewer, a civil engineer turned neighborhood activist.

Several houses flipped with Omni National Bank financing have driven up property taxes in his West End neighborhood, he said. Yet the homes mostly sit vacant, attracting criminals and squatters.

The most explosive charge in the Atlanta case alleges Delroy Davy paid kickbacks to an unnamed loan officer at Omni who gave approval for funding to investors who wanted to buy his inner-city properties.

In a flipping case with Michigan connections, an East Point man, Mark Anthony McBride, pleaded guilty to falsifying his identity and using straw borrowers to obtain millions in loans from Omni only days after his release from prison.

Omni is “the most egregious of the lenders because they’re local. They know if the appraisals are correct,” said Brewer

Brewer said Omni repossessed, sold and financed one house near him three separate times, even though for much of that time it sat vacant and windowless, with huge sections of its exterior walls torn away.

Property records confirm Omni took possession and resold the house three times in two years at rising values, following a pattern that allowed the bank to hide its growing number of foreclosures.

Patricia Morgen, 62, of Oakland, California pleaded guilty in federal court in San Francisco yesterday to wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering, United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced December 17, 2009.

In his announcement, U.S. Attorney Russoniello restated the Department of Justice’s top priority to vigorously prosecute individuals who commit mortgage fraud and other financial crimes.

In pleading guilty, Morgen admitted that the company she founded and controlled, Chicago Development and Planning (CDP) engaged in two fraudulent schemes: (1) a Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 400 individual investors by falsely promising that their investment funds would be used to acquire, renovate, and re-sell real estate; and (2) a mortgage fraud scheme that defrauded a mortgage broker and various mortgage lenders by use of loan applications with fraudulent income and asset statements. Morgen admitted that the loss for the two schemes exceeded $8 million. In the plea agreement, Morgen agreed to make restitution in the amount of no less than $8,439,086.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began investigating Chicago Development and Planning in 2004, and ultimately obtained a default judgment against Morgen when she failed to appear in any of the civil proceedings. In pleading guilty, Morgen admitted that when she learned of the SEC’s investigation, she instructed employees to destroy documents and then fled to Mexico to avoid federal authorities. Morgen also admitted that she instructed an employee to contact a mortgage broker who had worked on CDP real estate acquisitions in an attempt to convince the mortgage broker not to provide documents to the SEC.

On Sept. 2, 2009, Morgen’s co-defendant, Michael Ware, pled guilty to similar charges involving Chicago Development and Planning’s mortgage fraud scheme.

“This case shows that the appearance of success can be a mask for a tangled financial web of lies,” said Scott O’Brian, Special Agent in Charge, IRS-Criminal Investigation, and Oakland Field office. “Ponzi schemes can thrive for a time on false claims about how the money is being invested and where the returns are coming from. But that time is gone, and as this case shows, it’s time for those responsible to face judgment.”

Morgen was indicted by a federal Grand Jury on Nov. 20, 2008. She was charged with 11 counts of mail and wire fraud, as well as a single count of money laundering. Under the plea agreement, Morgen pled guilty to two counts of mail fraud, two counts of wire fraud, and one count of money laundering.

Morgen is currently in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons. Her sentencing is scheduled for April 7, 2010, before Judge Charles R. Breyer in San Francisco. The maximum statutory penalty for mail and wire fraud is 30 years. The maximum statutory penalty for money laundering is 10 years.

MTSU Professor Sentenced to 12 Months and a Day for Mortgage Fraud Scheme

NASHVILLE, TN—Edward M. Yarbrough, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, and My Harrison, Special Agent in Charge, Memphis Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced that, on November 13, 2009, U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger sentenced Pamela Gail Holder to 12 months and one day in prison for her role in a mortgage fraud scheme. Dr. Holder had been found guilty of bank fraud and wire fraud offenses related to that scheme following a one-week jury trial in April 2009.

Dr. Holder, a professor of nursing at Middle Tennessee State University and the former coordinator of the statewide Tennessee Board of Regents On-Line Degree Program, was originally charged in a four-count indictment in June 2008. At trial, the jury heard evidence that Dr. Holder and others helped orchestrate a multi-million dollar mortgage-fraud scheme that involved a “straw buyer” with a good credit score, who was deceived by Dr. Holder into borrowing $2.4 million for the purpose of purchasing a $1.5 million dollar home in Hendersonville, Tennessee. In the months leading up to the purchase, Dr. Holder helped prepare or send false documents that, among other things, falsely claimed that the straw buyer was president of “Team Fat Man,” an automotive-sales business owned by Dr. Holder’s deceased husband, and greatly inflated the straw buyer’s income. Through those documents and other fraudulent misrepresentations, Dr. Holder was able to qualify the straw buyer for large loans well beyond what the straw buyer could afford. The scheme involved loans obtained at Bank of Nashville, Countrywide Home Loans, and First Tennessee Bank. After the straw buyer purchased the lavish home, Dr. Holder and her husband moved in and spent the excess loan funds on various purchases, including several pieces of diamond jewelry. When the straw buyer was unable to make the monthly mortgage payments of approximately $10,000, the mortgage defaulted and the property was foreclosed upon.

At the sentencing hearing, the government focused on the profound damage that Dr. Holder’s crime caused an innocent victim and the negative effect of mortgage fraud on the banking industry and the lending process. After the sentencing, United States Attorney Edward Yarbrough remarked, “Mortgage fraud is a serious crime, and we are pleased that the Court has imposed an appropriately serious sentence in this case. The United States Attorney’s Office and our law-enforcement partners will continue to investigate such frauds and bring those who commit them to justice.” In addition, My Harrison, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Memphis Division, stated, “The FBI will continue to target those who criminally manipulate our financial system for personal gain and keep working to bring criminals like this to justice to ensure that they pay for their crimes.”

The investigation of the case was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ty E. Howard of the Middle District of Tennessee and Trial Attorney Peter A. Frandsen of the U.S. Department of Justice Fraud Section represented the United States.