Two men will spend multiple years in federal prison for a scheme to buy a $1.3 million Virginia home.
A federal judge this week sentenced Herman Estes Jr., of Fieldale, Virginia to 84 months in prison for the wire and tax fraud to purchase the Roanoke County home in March 2023. A co-conspirator, Daniel Heggins of Charlotte, North Carolina, was also
Feds say Estes tendered a fraudulent cashier's check for $1,307,199 supposedly drawn off a Federal Reserve Bank to buy the property. The money was debited to a settlement company's trust account overseen by Heggins before the check was flagged as fraudulent.
In 2021, Estes filed a false amended income tax return claiming he was entitled to a $18.3 million refund; he amended a subsequent return in 2023 for an additional $2.9 million refund. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Internal Revenue Service investigated the case.
The median sold home price in Roanoke County today is $360,500, according to Realtor.com. The home in the case was located on Old Mill Plantation Road, a pricey enclave in the county.
According to a superseding indictment, Estes contacted a real estate agent online about the property, and provided a false letter showing he was approved for a private real estate loan for $1.3 million. The filing also said Estes uploaded extensive false trust documents via a cloud-based eClosing platform.
Both men were also sentenced to three years of supervised release.
The punishment comes amid an emphasized push by the Trump administration's housing regulators to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse in the market. Regarding home loans, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte has
