Florida Man Sentenced to 13 Years for Fraud

Peter Affatati of Coral Springs, Fla., has been sentenced to 156 months in prison in federal court in West Palm Beach for his role in a multi-million dollar mortgage fraud scheme. Affatati was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $8.8 million. Affatati was charged with and pled guilty to orchestrating a $40 million mortgage fraud scheme that involved more than 50 residential mortgages, most of them in South Florida. Affatati used straw buyers to purchase the residential properties. Affatati used his title company to falsify the staw buyers' employment, income and asset information to qualify them for large mortgages from institutional lenders. Upon the funding of the mortgage, he diverted a large portion of the proceeds for his personal benefit. Affatati was also charged with defrauding a victim in North Carolina by selling to the victim fictitious securities in the amount of $390,000. The mortgage lenders suffered actual losses after the properties were foreclosed upon of more than $8 million.