The owner of a title company in Red Bank, N.J., pleaded guilty to stealing $3.8 million in loan proceeds intended for payment of mortgage balances and other closing costs.
Ronald P. Mas Jr., 35, of Red Bank, a mortgage broker, settlement agent and owner of Olde Gotham Title and Settlement Services, pleaded guilty before a superior court judge to an accusation charging him with second-degree money laundering and second-degree theft by failure to make required disposition of property received.
According to New Jersey attorney general Paula Dow, Mas admitted that between April 1, 2009 and Feb. 15, 2010, he stole $3,841,616 that he received from various mortgage lenders for real estate closings on behalf of 11 homebuyers throughout New Jersey.
Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 15.
The state will recommend that Mas be sentenced to 12 years in prison. He must execute a consent judgment to pay full restitution to the title company that insured the mortgages.
“This defendant stole millions of dollars entrusted to him for real estate closings, funneling the money into his personal investment account,” said Dow. “This was a shameless betrayal of his fiduciary duty as a settlement agent.”
“Through major prosecutions such as this one, we are working to combat mortgage and investment fraud,” added criminal justice director Stephen J. Taylor.
According to the lawsuit, the state investigation revealed that Mas diverted loan proceeds into his Ameritrade account. Instead of paying off the client’s old mortgage, Mas allegedly would make monthly mortgage payments and invest the balance of the loan proceeds into the Ameritrade account.
It is alleged that Mas made monthly payments on some mortgages using funds from new loans provided for clients. At the end of February 2010, Mas had a total loss of over $3.4 million in his Ameritrade account. As a result, 11 mortgages were not paid.
