Florida Man Sentenced for Foreclosure Fraud Scheme

After pleading guilty to participating in a complex fraud scheme in which he filed and foreclosed on false mortgages in Florida, Sergej Tews was sentenced to 33 months in prison. He also was sentenced to three years of supervised release following the prison term and ordered to pay $636,000 in restitution. According to R. Alexander Acosta, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Tews induced homeowners to transfer their properties to him in exchange for his promise to assume their mortgage payments and caused the homeowners to execute warranty deeds, which gave the appearance that the properties were sold to a third party instead of being transferred to Tews. He then fabricated the amount paid for each property, paid the filing taxes based on the false amount and filed fraudulent mortgages on each property. At the foreclosure sales, third-party purchasers were deceived into believing that there were no pre-existing mortgages on the properties and bid on and bought the properties at auction. After the third-party purchasers paid for the properties, the court issued checks to Tews in the names of his purported foreclosing lenders.