California LO Pleads Guilty to Defrauding Lenders

Jerald Allen Teixeira, a former loan officer from Bakersfield, Calif., has pleaded guilty to wire fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud mortgage lenders. Teixeira was formerly a loan officer at Tower Lending, a mortgage brokerage company that was affiliated with Crisp & Cole Real Estate and was owned by Crisp & Cole's owners. As part of his plea agreement before U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger, he agreed to cooperate in the government's ongoing investigation. According to Lawrence G. Brown, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California, Teixeira admitted that he and others executed a scheme to defraud lending institutions by submitting materially false and fraudulent statements in mortgage loan applications and related documents to obtain loans from the lenders for borrowers' purchases of real property. Teixeira also obtained loans to finance the purchase of approximately 11 real properties with a total purchase value at the time of $4.4 million. In order to qualify for these loans, he knowingly made misstatements or omitted relevant information. Teixeira is scheduled for sentencing on March 22, 2010.