More Miami Mortgage Fraud
More indictments have come down in Miami for mortgage fraud. As I have been writting for the past several months, this is the new target area for the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and many other executive agencies. This latest indictment has been filed against Peter Affatati, Anthony Affatati, Anthony Cuomo, and Brian Schiltz. The defendants made their initial appearances in Federal Court in Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. These Mortgage Fraud indictments have many of the common issues presented in any fraud case. There are allegations of "straw buyers" who bought property with no intent to keep the property, but rather to refund money back to the seller or broker. There are also allegations of creating false information on mortgage applications. This can include anual income, expenses, overstating the value of the property.
Many times the appraiser of the property is in on the mortgage fraud. The appraiser comes in and over values the property in the formal appraisal that is submitted to the lending institution. The institution relies on the appraisal when issue the loan more than any other document. Many defendants in mortgage fraud indictments fail to look at the elements of the offense. These indictments are not straight forward unless a codefendant goes to the government and says,"hey, we were trying to defraud the bank." Many fraud indictments are directly related to the lender not investigating the information provided by the borrower.
In this case there are also allegations of wire fraud, investment fraud, foreign exchange fraud and at some point mail fraud will come into play. Defending a mortgage fraud indictment is time consuming and must be taken very seriously. If you are indicted for mortgage fraud you are facing prison time and a substantial fine. Hiring a good white collar criminal defense attorney to defend your case is critical. There will not be a second chance to defend you case. Our mortgage fraud defense attorneys are happy to speak with you about your case and we handle federal indictments all over the courtry.
Our Charleston criminal defense attorneys are available almost anytime to speak with you about your case. We have federal defense lawyers in Charleston, Myrtle Beach, Columbia, Florence, Greenville, Miami, Miami Beach, Savannah, Atlanta, Valdosta. Our firm takes a personal approach to defending our clients on all indictments.
