Two Arizona mortgage scammers were sentenced to federal prison for their roles in a scheme to commit bank fraud, transactional money laundering and wire fraud.
Real estate agent and developer Walter Fruit was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison, while Sandra Jackson, a former escrow agent, has to serve a six-month prison term.
As part of his guilty plea, Fruit admitted to obtaining various loans between July 2006 and May 2007 in order to purchase several properties using different business entities which he and a co-conspirator, who was also a developer, were associated with.
Subsequently, the conspirators sold these properties to straw buyers. Fruit also stated that he fraudulently inflated the true sales price for these assets.
During the loan approval process, Fruit knowingly submitted documents that contained false statements representing that the borrowers would provide the downpayment or cash to close the real estate transactions. However, portions of the fraudulently obtained loan proceeds were wired or deposited into bank accounts controlled by Fruit and the other co-conspirator.
Meanwhile, Jackson acknowledged that she obtained three properties through these fraudulent loans. Also, Jackson confessed to knowing that the documents provided to the lenders to receive the mortgage loans contained inaccurate information.
The properties acquired due to this scam went into foreclosure and resulted in significant losses to the lenders.
Besides their prison terms, Fruit was ordered to pay a restitution judgment totaling more than $2.5 million and Jackson’s restitution is $480,000.
