James Cockinos was sentenced by U.S. District Judge of New Jersey Freda L. Wolfson to one year in prison for his role in conspiring to commit bank fraud in order to secure a $1.48 million residential real estate loan.
According to court documents, Cockinos was the owner and president of Federated Mortgage Co. of America, as well as a member of the board of directors at Mariner’s Bank.
Through FMCA, Cockinos served as a mortgage broker on a loan application submitted to Washington Mutual Bank—which was acquired by JPMorgan Chase in September 2008—dated April 19, 2007 meant to purchase a $1.9 million property located in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
The complaint identified the borrower on the application as “Individual Two” who applied for the loan at the request of a spouse who was labeled as “Individual One.” There was no co-borrower on the loan.
As part of the scam, Cockinos was responsible for including Individual Two’s employment, income, and assets to complete the application, which were submitted with false statements. Cockinos indicated in the application that he obtained the information from his client through a face-to-face interview, when in reality, this did not happen.
Rather than review the contents of the application, Individual Two signed the document thinking it contained accurate information.
Court documents revealed that the loan application indicated that Individual Two had $400,000 in a joint checking account at Mariner’s Bank. But Cockinos and Individual One caused $350,000 to be temporarily deposited into the account to misrepresent Individual Two’s assets to Washington Mutual.
Furthermore, Cockinos directed a Mariner’s Bank employee to falsely verify that this money was in the account for at least two months before the application was submitted.
Washington Mutual ultimately approved a loan of $1.48 million and wired this amount to Individual Two’s closing attorney in June 2007.
Between November 2010 and January 2011, the borrower ended up defaulting on the loan. Subsequently, JPMorgan initiated the foreclosure proceedings and sold the property a year later. However, the New York-based financial institution lost more than $500,000 due this defaulted loan.
In addition to the prison term, Cockinos was fined $5,000 and ordered to pay more than $513,000 in restitution.
