In the following press release from Greenbelt, Maryland,  United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein announced that a federal grand jury indicted Patricia Omondi, age 38, and her husband Boureima Sanfo, age 47, both of Woodbridge, Virginia, today for interstate transportation of property obtained by fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice in connection with a scheme to defraud residential lot buyers.

According to the 13-count indictment, Omondi was the president of Raycha Homes, also known as Construction Consulting and Management (CCM), a home builder located on Old Bridge Road in Woodbridge, Virginia. Sanfo was a loan officer for CCM and Allstate Mortgage. From November 2004 to December 2005, the defendants met with individuals and promised to build homes for them on the lots of their choice. They allegedly drove individuals 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 indictment alleges that the defendants caused individuals to enter into a contract with CCM for the construction and purchase of a house and to make regular payments towards the down payment. No homes, however, were constructed and no lots were in fact 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.
 
In October 2006, a federal grand jury was investigating whether the defendants were committing fraud in connection with their home building operations. The indictment alleges that the defendants obstructed the investigation by providing the grand jury with studies had purportedly been done in 2005 regarding the feasibility of constructing houses on lots selected by purchasers, when in facts the feasibility studies were completed in September 2006.

The indictment seeks forfeiture of $202,435. The defendants face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine for each count. Their initial appearances have not been scheduled.
 
United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein praised the U.S. Secret Service for its investigative work and thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bryan E. Foreman and Michele Sartori, who are prosecuting the case.

In a press release Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason announced indictments in the following matter which involved a property in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Ayanna Israel, 29, of Middleburg Heights, owned a house at 21999 Shelburne Road. In the fall of 2003, Israel rented the house to William Daniel, 39, of Cleveland.

Daniel, with the assistance of Artist White, 47, of University Heights, who was acting as his broker, wanted to buy the house, but Daniel did not have good credit. Israel’s live-in boyfriend and business partner, Jeffrey St. Martin, 33, of Middleburg Heights, knew that Renita Burke, 44, of Euclid, had a better credit rating and assisted her in buying this house from Israel for $625,000 on December 31, 2004. Burke then signed a deal with Daniel that granted him the option to buy the house while he continued to live there.

Israel also acted as Burke’s mortgage broker to find a lender to finance a loan of $550,000 needed to close the purchase. Israel and Burke knowingly submitted a fraudulent loan application that inflated Burke’s income, misrepresented her assets, and falsified her employment by stating that she owned Burke Interior, a legitimate company, when in fact she had no connection with this company. At the time Burke applied for this loan, she was earning about $15 an hour before she lost her job. For those who assisted in this scheme, Daniel received $10,000, White $18,000, Burke $20,000, the mortgage broker firm, Dana Capital Group, where Israel worked before she was discharged, received a $5,000 commission. Each of these parties was indicted.

Based on this fraudulent application, People’s Choice Home Loans, of California, loaned Israel $550,000. To cover the balance of the $625,000 price, Burke was supposed to make a down payment of $70,000. However, St. Martin, Israel and others created a fake paper trial, making it appear to the lender that the $70,000 had been deposited with the title company, Regency Title, owned by Shirley Rodgers, 70, of Independence, to complete the deal. But this money was never part of the transaction; this fake deposit was hidden from the lender.

Rodgers’ title company, which received a fee for this fraudulent deal, along with Carla Phillips, 29, of Cleveland Heights, and her company, Blue & Son Contracting, of Cleveland Heights, were involved in this fraudulent down payment scheme as third party payment providers. Phillips received $500 for her part in the scam. All of the players in this down payment scam were charged.

Prosecutor Mason has also charged Rogers and her company for similar conduct in one of the cases filed in early January. This scam unraveled when Burke became angry with William Daniel’s failure to move out when he stopped paying his rent and changed the locks a few months after Burke bought the house. Upset, Burke filed a complaint with the Shaker Heights Police, and when a Shaker Heights detective investigated her compliant, he uncovered the scam. The house is now in foreclosure.

Click here to read the indictment.

Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore announced that Catherine Martino (DOB12/07/64) of 1940 Deer Park Avenue, Deer Park, New York, was sentenced today to 21/2 to 5 years in state prison on two counts of Grand Larceny in the Third Degree. Additionally, as a condition of her sentence, judgment orders were issued for the full amount of the thefts.

Over a two month period from December 10, 2004 to February 3, 2005, the defendant defrauded three potential purchasers of a total of $52,250 by falsely representing herself to be the owner and seller of a property located at 339 South Fifth Avenue in Mount Vernon, New York.

On December 10, 2004, she received a down payment check in the amount of $11,750.00 from one prospective purchaser. On January 26, 2005, she received a down payment of $18,000 from another interested party for the sale of the same house. Martino defrauded a third unsuspecting victim on February 3, 2005, by taking a $22,500 check as a down payment.

District Attorney DiFiore said, “This defendant repeatedly misrepresented herself as the owner of a house defrauding a number of unsuspecting buyers. Although her greed will be rewarded with a term in state prison, her actions should alert prospective purchasers of property to the pitfalls of not carefully and methodically vetting the seller before handing over any money.”

Assistant District Attorney Gwendolyn Galef of the Economic Crimes Bureau prosecuted the case. Click here for the complete press release

Dennis I. Shusterman pleaded guilty yesterday 12 days into his trial. The Fort Washington accountant charged with embezzling $10.8 million from a Kimber Manufacturing Inc., a gun-maker in Yonkers, N.Y. also pleaded guilty in relation to shielding his income from the Internal Revenue Service and bankruptcy court and lying to get a mortgage to buy a $2.2 million house in San Diego. He total he admitted to 51 counts.

The property subject of the indictment was at 17046 Circa Oriente, in Rancho Santa Fe, CA and Millenium Bank gave Shusterman a mortgage of over $1.7 million. Shusterman lied about his income and the source of the $585,000 down payment which he had stolen from Kimber.

Click here for the indictment.

According to a report from Jennifer Lin in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Shusterman had played an active role in his own defense, often openly challenging his lawyer and loudly suggesting questions for him to ask witnesses.

U.S. District Judge Legrome D. Davis asked Shusterman why he was entering a guilty plea.

"Based on the facts of this case, I feel we’re not going to be able to support my innocence," Shusterman said.

Davis seemed taken aback by the reply.

Defense attorney Elliot Cohen quickly interjected. "Are you pleading guilty because you are in fact guilty?"

Shusterman answered in a low voice, "Yes. I’m accepting a plea of guilty."

Sentencing was set for August 18, 2006.

The Times Leader carries an Associated Press wire about Wendy Jean-Francois, 44, of Morrisville, PA who pleaded guilty yesterday in Bucks County Court to multiple charges that she used forged down payment checks in order to purchase a house.

Prosecutors said Jean-Francois sat down Oct. 5 at a settlement table at Rainbow Assurance, a mortgage title firm in Falls, with 97 cents in her bank account, in what a prosecutor said was his first case in which a defendant stole an entire house.

But she used two checks totaling $63,000 and a letter vouching for them, purportedly from a Wachovia Bank manager, and left with the keys to a $328,000 home, prosecutors said.

The checks turned out to be counterfeit and the letter forged, said David Zellis, first assistant district attorney. "This just boggles the mind," he said. Bucks County Judge Kenneth Biehn deferred Jean-Francois’ sentencing for a mental health evaluation.

Update on Tuesday, June 13, 2006 at 04:28PM by The Editor - Ian Shuter

The Center Daily reports that Jean-Francois was sentenced to two years in prison, 5 years probation and ordered to repay $66,000.
Click here for the whole article

A Manhattan DA press release reveals that MICHAEL LARRY GOLDMAN, was a former partner in Goldman and Rio, located at 1841 Broadway in Manhattan. In early 2004, the defendant represented the sellers of a house in Glen Cove, Long Island. The prospective buyer successfully bid on the house and gave the defendant a check for $43,000 to be placed into escrow for the closing, which was scheduled for the end of May, 2004. GOLDMAN was suspended from the bar in May, 2004 but did not tell the buyer of his suspension. For a variety of reasons, the house closing was delayed until September, at which point the buyer demanded the return of the down payment. GOLDMAN stalled, and the house wound up being sold to someone else. GOLDMAN never returned the $43,000 that the victim had given him to be placed in escrow.

The defendant has been charged in a felony complaint with Grand Larceny in the Third Degree and will be arraigned in New York City Criminal Court later today.