Florida Man Sentenced to 22 Years for Mortgage Fraud

After pleading guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges in September 2008 in connection to organizing a large mortgage fraud scheme, Ronald Luczak of Cape Coral, Fla., has been sentenced to 22 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $5.9 million in restitution to his victims. According to court documents, between September 2005 and December 2006, Luczak and his company obtained more than $30 million worth of mortgages on at least 37 Cape Coral properties. His company recruited 33 straw buyers and reported on the mortgage applications that the straw buyers were purchasing the properties and falsely inflated the properties' values, fraudulently reported the purported buyers' incomes and occupations, provided false schedules of real estate and assets supposedly owned by the buyers and falsely stated that the buyers intended to use the properties for their primary residences. Luczak and the company received more than $5.8 million from the scheme. Luczak's wife, Lisa Luczak and Sandra Mainardi, a New Jersey loan processor, previously were sentenced to 46 months each for their part in the scheme.