BOSTON – November 18, 2015 – (RealEstateRama) — A Methuen business executive pleaded guilty today to participating in a conspiracy to defraud banks and mortgage companies by engaging in sham “short” sales of residential properties in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts.
The conspiracy began in approximately August 2007 and continued through June 2010, a period that included the height of the financial crisis and its aftermath. Home values in Massachusetts and across the nation declined precipitously, and many homeowners found themselves suddenly “underwater,” with their homes worth less than the mortgage debt they owed. As part of the scheme, Moran and her co-conspirators submitted materially false and misleading documents to numerous banks in an effort to induce them to permit the short-sales – and thereby to release the purported sellers from their unpaid mortgage debts – while simultaneously inducing the purported buyers’ banks to provide financing for the deals. In fact, the purported sellers simply stayed in the homes, with their debt substantially reduced.
United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; Christina Scaringi, Special Agent in Charge of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General, New York Field Office; and Christy Goldsmith Romero, the Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, made the announcement today. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen E. Frank, Deputy Chief of Ortiz’s Economic Crimes Unit.
