Five Ohio Residents Charged with Fraud

Five Ohio residents have been charged for their roles in a mortgage fraud scheme. Paul A. Lesniak of Strongsville, Uri Gofman of Beachwood, Grennadiy Simkhovich of Highland Heights, Dave Pirichy of Burton and Howard Sieferd, Jr., of Euclid, have been charged with allegedly conspiring to purchase 18 properties in the Cleveland area for almost $2 million. The indictment alleges that Mr. Lesniak completed and submitted false and fraudulent loan applications with the assistance of Mr. Pirichy, a broker for Central National Mortgage, which falsified his employment, overstated his income and assets, falsified his intent to occupy the property and concealed the source of the down payment funds, which were provided by Mr. Gofman and Mr. Simkhovich through their company, Real Asset Fund, in order to obtain the financing to purchase the eighteen properties. The indictment also alleges that Mr. Sieferd served as the title agent on the properties and conspired with Mr. Gofman and Mr. Simkhovich to allow the loan proceeds to be fraudulently and improperly distributed. The defendants allegedly did all of this in order to defraud Long Beach Mortgage Company, Argent Mortgage Company and Mortgage IT into funding the loans.