Chicago Mortgage Fraud Indictments
According to the "Examiner" 41 defendants have been charged with mortgage fraud. The mortgage fraud indictment alleges there were several schemes in which the defendants inflated the values of dilapidated homes. This is common throughout many federal indictments. There is a scenario in which an appraisal shows the value of a property being extremely over inflated. The loan is rendered based on this inflated value. After the sale of the property, no payments are made and the seller walks away with the profit free and clear. The buyer allows the property to go into foreclosure. Many years ago this would not have been the basis for a federal indictment, but in todays environment the banks are pointing fingers at everyone for this home foreclosure epidemic. This Chicago case is against several key players to many mortgage fraud cases. There are mortgage brokers, loan officers, real estate investors, appraisers, attorneys, and the president of a title company. With this number of individuals there will be a rush to cooperate with the government. First to cooperate may make the best deal to testify against the rest of the defendants.
The government will make every effort to recoup the money that the banks will allege they have lost because of this group. The amount of money that is alleged to have been fraudulently obtained will be critical in determining what type of prison exposure these defendants will face at a sentencing. There is a strong possibility that this investigation has been on going for over a year and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has done an extensive review of the bank statements and closing documents related to the property transactions. The federal defense attorneys representing these defendants would be well served to communicate at some level to see if they may have the ability to defend the case in trial. Many times it will be just one defendant that can sink the rest by his/her statements to the government in a mortgage fraud case.
Investigation of a mortgage fraud case is never a quick process and the government will be sure to gather as many documents as possible prior to the indictment. Document organization and clarification will help to ensure that a defendant is not carelessly taken down with a group.
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