The Rocky Mountain News reports that a Denver grand jury has indicted two men on charges they violated the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act in alleged mortgage scams that led to home foreclosures.  Most of the felony charges have been filed against Luis Vagle, the former head of a company called First Financial Corp. at 494 Sheridan Blvd.

Lawrence M. Rosenberg, who according to real estate records owns the Sheridan Boulevard building with Vagle, faces lesser charges. Neither has been arrested, said Joe Morales, who heads the Denver district attorney’s economic crime unit.

He said a “fair estimate” is that Vagle’s schemes bilked home sellers and lenders out of at least $1 million. It could have been worse, but some lenders would not approve loans Vagle submitted, Morales said.

In some cases, Vagle or others, including Rosenberg, submitted fraudulent loan applications to lenders that included phony checks, W-2 forms, letters of recommendation and letters verifying employment, according to the 20-page, 15-count indictment.

In one case, Vagle said he would buy several properties from a woman and use the proceeds to pay off her credit card debt, but he instead used the money for his own business expenses, according to the indictment.

Update on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 at 12:51PM by The Editor - Ian Shuter - ACFE, DMS

The Rocky Mountain News reports that Luis Vagle was arrested in Las Vegas last week.
He posted his $150,000 bail on Monday and is scheduled to turn himself in next week, said Daniel Chun, criminal investigator in the economic crime unit in the Denver district attorney’s office. Authorities were unable to locate Vagle until last week.

Click here to read the article