DA: Mortgage Firm Bilked Millions From Homeowners, Banks
SANTA ANA (CBS) — Five employees at a Rancho Santa Margarita-based real estate and mortgage business were charged with conspiracy in connection with a multi-million-dollar mortgage fraud scheme, prosecutors said Friday.
KNX 1070's Mike Landa reports loan officers at the firm Pacific Vantage bilked homeowners and banks out of millions of dollars.
Podcast
Pacific Vantage owner William David Robin, 53, of Coto de Caza; real estate agents Richard Cadieu, 73, of Laguna Woods, and Zane Rogers, 49, of Paso Robles; and loan officers Christopher Allen Taylor, 38, of Riverside, and Agida Jamil, 52, of Rancho Santa Margarita, are charged with conspiracy to commit grand theft and conspiracy to make false financial statements, plus multiple sentencing enhancement allegations for property loss to the victims, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
The loan officers also are charged with eight counts of felony grand theft, while the real estate agents are each facing one count of felony grand theft.
According to prosecutors, Robin allegedly masterminded a mortgage fraud scheme, beginning in 2006, in which he, Jamil and Taylor marketed a "shared equity program" in which buyers were told that if they paid half their mortgage payments to Pacific Vantage, the company would cover the other half, and after a few years, the buyer could buy out Pacific Vantage or sell the property and split the profit.
Jamil and Taylor allegedly filled out loan applications for 16 homes showing inflated incomes for the buyers, who otherwise would not have been eligible for a mortgage, according to prosecutors.
Pacific Vantage allegedly stopped paying the lender on the 16 homes starting in late 2007, but the customers continued to make payments to the company and eventually lost their homes, according to the District Attorney's Office.
If convicted the defendants could each get from 12 to 18 years in prison.
(©2010 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
