Minnesota Couple Sentenced for Defrauding Mortgage Firms

After pleading guilty to defrauding several mortgage lending companies, a couple from Oak Grove, Minn., has recently been sentenced. Michelle M. Niska has been sentenced to 36 months in prison and three years of supervised release. Robert G. Bock has been sentenced to 10 months of confinement in a halfway house and three years of supervised release. According to their respective plea agreements, Bock and Niska borrowed $593,740 and granted the lender a mortgage on their jointly owned home. Niska filed a document with the county recorder's office purporting to be a satisfaction of the mortgage the defendants had granted to the lender, even though the defendants had not paid off the loan. The couple then sold the home to a third party for $675,000 and admitted that they knew the title company that closed the home's sale should have used the third-party buyer's loan proceeds to pay off the loan, but instead allowed the title company to believe that the loan had been repaid. The defendants then pocketed proceeds from the sale, amounting to $510,000.